(Curiosity rover snapped this image looking up the ramp at the northeastern end of the “Hidden Valley”. Drilling target “Bonanza King” is at the centre of the scene – Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has chosen its next target: a rock that looks like a pale paving stone.
The Martian rock is called ‘Bonanza King’ and if it passes engineers’ evaluations, it will become Curiosity’s fourth drilling target.
However, the rock is not located at ‘Pahrump Hills’, a site that Curiosity’s team anticipated it might reach by mid-August. Unexpected challenges, while driving in sand, prompted the mission to reverse and change course.
“Geologically speaking, we can tie the Bonanza King rocks to those at Pahrump Hills. Studying them here will give us a head start in understanding how they fit into the bigger picture of Gale Crater and Mount Sharp,” said Curiosity Deputy Project Scientist Ashwin Vasavada of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
(The pale rocks in the foreground of this image include the “Bonanza King” target – Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
Curiosity’s long-term science destination is Mount Sharp, a Martian mountain which offers a stack of rock layers that, hopefully, hold evidence about environmental changes on ancient Mars.
Mount Sharp is located inside the Gale Crater, where Curiosity landed in August 2012. So far, Curiosity has successfully drilled three rock samples and they have all been geologically associated with the crater floor.
Sample material from the first two rocks were delivered to Curiosity’s on board analytical laboratories in 2013 and they provided historic evidence that confirmed that Mars once had environmental conditions favourable for microbial life.
Scientist are hoping that a drilled sample from Bonanza King may add understanding about how the Martian environment varied and evolved.
(This image shows the “Bonanza King” rock among others – Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)
“This rock has an appearance quite different from the sandstones we’ve been driving through for several months,” Vasavada said. “The landscape is changing, and that’s worth checking out.”
This summer, Curiosity will drill into Bonanza King, collect a rock sample and deliver it for on board analysis.
The Solar System & Beyond 