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Published February 2015 | public
Journal Article

Curiosity's Mission of Exploration at Gale Crater, Mars

Abstract

Landed missions to the surface of Mars have long sought to determine the material properties of rocks and soils encountered during the course of surface exploration. Increasingly, emphasis is placed on the study of materials formed or altered in the presence of liquid water. Placed in the context of their geological environment, these materials are then used to help evaluate ancient habitability. The Mars Science Laboratory mission—with its Curiosity rover—seeks to establish the availability of elements that may have fueled microbial metabolism, including carbon, hydrogen, sulfur, nitrogen, phosphorus, and a host of others at the trace element level. These measurements are most valuable when placed in a geological framework of ancient environments as interpreted from mapping, combined with an understanding of the petrogenesis of the igneous rocks and derived sedimentary materials. In turn, the analysis of solid materials and the reconstruction of ancient environments provide the basis to assess past habitability.

Additional Information

© 2015 by the Mineralogical Society of America. We are indebted to the Mars Science Laboratory Project engineering and science teams for their exceptionally skilled and diligent efforts in making the mission as effective as possible and enhancing science operations. The manuscript was reviewed by Gordon Brown, Paul Mahaffy, and Dave Vaniman, and help with figures was provided by Mike Baker, Fred Calef, Caroline Freissinet, Jen Griffes Shechet, Scott McLennan, Ralph Milliken, Kirsten Siebach, and Dave Vaniman. Some of this research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Data presented in this paper, and in others of this issue, are archived in the Planetary Data System (pds.nasa.gov).

Additional details

Created:
August 22, 2023
Modified:
October 20, 2023