NASA's Rover takes a sample from an active Martian dune

NASA's Rover takes a sample from an active Martian dune

NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover is moving up the hill from a strip of corrugated sand dunes, holding a handful of dark sand to be analyzed. From February to April, the device investigated 4 areas near the dune, in order to compare it with what it found at the end of 2015 and the beginning of 2016 (the dunes resembled a crescent). This is a two-stage mission, as well as the first large-scale study of active dunes outside our planet.

Scientists are trying to understand how the winds form relatively close to each other dunes, while creating different patterns. It is important to understand how they sort the grains of sand and how this affects the distribution of the mineral composition. All this will affect the study of Martian sandstones.

So far, everyone agrees that in the linear dunes the wind regime is much more complicated than in the “crescents” studied earlier.

NASA's Rover takes a sample from an active Martian dune

This is a 360-degree view of Bangold’s dunes stretching for several miles.

Linear dunes are located 1.6 km south of the crescents. Both plots are part of the dunes of Bangold. This is a field that rises on the northwestern slope of the Eolida. But form is not the only difference between them. The apparatus was in the crescents during the low season of the winds, and in the linear dunes - in the period of strong. Greater movement of grains and ripples was noticeable in the second version. To calculate the strength and direction of the wind, researchers use images taken at different times to track the movement of the grains of sand. The REMS (wind environmental monitoring) device is no longer available on the rover, although it continues to transmit other data (temperature, humidity and pressure). When landing in 2012, two of the six sensors failed.

The sample with sand is in the processing compartment (in one of the rover’s hands). One part has already been analyzed on Mars inside the apparatus, and the second is planned to be delivered to a tool for the analysis of chemistry and mineralogy (CheMin).

Rover continues to climb the mountain, but now it all depends on the performance of the drill. Five months ago, a problem arose in its operation, so scientists decided not to risk it and refused to drill stone structures. Engineers calculate how the use of vibration in the delivery of samples will affect the feed mechanism of the drill. In addition, the powerful winds and the position of the linear dunes complicated the process of extracting samples through the instrument inlets.

The goal is to get to Eolide to explore the reasons why places inhabited in antiquity turned into a desert.

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