Astronomy Picture of the Day: Mars at Sunrise: The Cliffs Curiosity Waited Years to See!

 

#NASA, #Space, #astronomy, #διάστημα

Black Hole Just after 8:30 a.m. on Mars, Curiosity turned its Mastcam toward the horizon and captured the sharpest view yet of cliffs that have tantalized scientists for years. Six frames, taken roughly an hour after sunrise, were stitched into a single glowing panorama. Those luminous ridges are yardangs — wind-sculpted cliffs carved over eons by the thin Martian atmosphere. But something about them feels wrong. JPL project scientist Ashwin Vasavada notes that the layer looks out of place: the wrong color, layers tilted at odd angles, almost as if it had been plastered onto the landscape rather than formed with it. Curiosity has been steadily climbing Mount Sharp since 2014. It has now passed roughly 1 km of elevation — the highest any rover has ever reached on Mars — and with every meter gained, the planet is revealing more of its strange, layered history.