Pasadena, CA – NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity has departed its last science target in the “Glenelg” area and commenced a many-month overland journey to the base of the mission’s main destination, Mount Sharp, with drives on July 4th and July 7th.
The rover finished close-up investigation of a target sedimentary outcrop called “Shaler” last week. On July 4th, it drove 59 feet (18 meters) away from Shaler.
Mount Sharp, in the middle of Gale Crater, exposes many layers where scientists anticipate finding evidence about how the ancient Martian environment changed and evolved.
In the Glenelg area, where Curiosity worked for the first half of 2013, the rover found evidence for an ancient wet environment that had conditions favorable for microbial life. This means the mission already accomplished its main science objective.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. JPL designed and built the project’s Curiosity rover.
More information about Curiosity is online at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/msl , http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ .
You can follow the mission on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity and on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity .
Written by Guy Webster
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
