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Curiosity Blog, Sols 4602-4603: On Top of the Ridge

Curiosity Blog, Sols 4602-4603: On Top of the Ridge

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Curiosity Blog, Sols 4602-4603: On Top of the Ridge

A grayscale photo shows Martian terrain, which appears medium gray throughout. In front of the Curiosity rover, the ground from the bottom to the middle of the frame appears relatively smooth, with a few scattered small rocks poking above the surface. In the upper part of the image, the terrain appears to slope downward from left to right, with ridges running down along that same direction. Part of the rover is visible in the lower-right corner of the image, casting a shadow on the ground.

NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image looking along the ridge it is exploring during its planned activities for July 16, 2025. Curiosity acquired this image using its Left Navigation Camera on July 15 — Sol 4600, or Martian day 4,600 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — at 17:12:14 UTC.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Written by Alex Innanen, Atmospheric Scientist at York University

Earth planning date: Wednesday, July 16, 2025

As we hoped, we successfully climbed the 11-meter ramp (about 36 feet) and have arrived at the top of the ridge and the start of the main boxwork region. This means we’re moving into the next phase of the boxwork campaign, which is all about assessing these features and how we can navigate our way through them, and learning everything we can about their composition.

In support of that, we’re taking a good look around at the boxwork ridges with both ChemCam and Mastcam. Both instruments are taking mosaics of the more distant ridges to get a broader view of their features. A bit closer in, Mastcam has three more mosaics: two looking at different views of “El Corral” and “Chapare,” both of which we saw in Monday’s plan, and “Meson,” which is the ridge we’ll be heading for in today’s 15-meter drive (about 49 feet).

It’s not all looking ahead, though. The workspace in front of us has a lot to offer as well. Mastcam will be turning its sights to some nearby linear features. Our workspace is also full of nodular bedrock, which is getting lots of up-close attention. ChemCam will be turning its LIBS laser on a target called “Altamora,” and MAHLI and APXS will be examining another target called “Nocarane.”

With all the geological excitement, we can still manage to squeeze in some time to keep an eye on the environment. Though we don’t always mention them, REMS, RAD, and DAN are always there working steadily away to build up our understanding of Mars’ environment. We’ll also round out the plan with a suprahorizon cloud movie and a 360-degree dust-devil survey.