Curiosity rover reaches ‘mysterious’ Mars cliffs after 14-year trek

By Dean Murray

A Mars rover has captured a stunning panorama of the "mysterious" cliffs it has taken more than 14 years to reach.

NASA's Curiosity rover has beamed back the most detailed view yet of the distant, wind-carved Martian cliffs, highlighting features the mission's scientists have long been waiting to see up close.

The scene was observed at 8:30 a.m. local Mars time on August 11, and shows striking blue hues in the foreground as bright morning light illuminates crags known as yardangs on the horizon.

Unlike most of Curiosity's Mastcam images, this one was processed without white balancing, preserving the early morning appearance.

The yardang layer extends roughly 10 miles (16 kilometers) across the northwestern reaches of Mount Sharp, a 3-mile-tall (5-kilometer-tall) mountain that Curiosity has been ascending since 2014.

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As it draws ever closer to the yardangs, mission scientists expect to get even more amazing imagery — and, they hope, answers to how these cliffs were created.

Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said: "The yardang layer looks out of place. It's the wrong color, the layers tilt at an odd angle, and it almost appears plastered on.

"But that's what makes it exciting to reach. No one is sure exactly what created this layer, but one idea is it may be ash deposited by ancient volcanic eruptions."

Curiosity is in the second year of its fifth extended mission, which started with an exploration of the spiderweb-like boxwork ridges. The rover will spend most of the next year or so driving through layers enriched with sulfates and carbonates, both signs of ancient drying on the surface.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said: "Sometime in 2027, scientists hope to reach the base of the yardangs, where Curiosity will be able to use its robotic arm to collect one-of-a-kind data on these mysterious features."