NASA's Curiosity rover has been
up to its wheel treads with Mars pebbles lately. The rover is rolling to a
potential drill site, but it's doing some sightseeing along the way. The views
include a fascinating collection of rounded pebbles.
While
some of the rocks look like they could have been culled from a stream bed, some
of the smaller and grayer pebbles look like wonderfully round peas. Software
engineer Kevin M. Gill, who wrangles data for NASA and processes space images (like
this gorgeous Jupiter shot), offered up an enhanced version of the pebble
field that really helps the grayer stones stand out from the others.
Curiosity's raw images from March 23 and 24 are full
of different views of these rocks. The rover team is investigating the pebbles to learn more
about their chemical makeup. Some of the pebbles are reminiscent of rocks
previously seen on the Red Planet that resemble blueberries or
miniature cannonballs.
Some
"blueberries" spotted by the Opportunity rover in 2004 are the size
of BBs and rich in hematite. NASA suggested those spherules may be
"concretions that grew inside water-soaked deposits."
Curiosity
seems to be functioning just fine after encountering
some technical hiccups in February and earlier in March. NASA switched the
rover over to a different computer "brain" to get it back into
operation. These lovely new images of Mars' marvelous pebbles are a good sign
the mission is running smoothly again.
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