After passing through a narrow, sand-filled passage in the summer of 2022, NASA's Curiosity rover recently arrived at Mt.
Minerals in this region discovered spaceNASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. This happened a few years before Curiosity landed in 2012. Scientists have been waiting a long time to see this area up close using a rover.
Shortly after arriving, the rover found manyvariety of rock types and signs of water in the past. These include popcorn-textured concretions and salty minerals such as magnesium sulfate (a type of Epsom salt), calcium sulfate (including gypsum), and sodium chloride (common table salt).
Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Using a drilling rig, mission scientists tookrequired samples. Now, as NASA says in a blog post, they are looking forward to analyzing parts of it with the Chemical and Mineralogical Instrument (CheMin) and the Mars Sample Analysis Instrument (SAM).
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