In order to gain more insight into the environment of Mars, NASA's Curiosity Mars rover is heading towards the Mars dark dunes, Bagnold Dunes. It will be the first time that Curiosity rover will visit sand dunes on Mars. Till now, no other planet has been found with sand dune except Earth. On analyzing the previous images regarding the Bagnold Dunes, scientists reported that some of the sand dunes are moving at a speed of 1 meter per Earth-year.
Bethany Ehlmann, from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory of Pasadena, California, said that they have planned some series to investigations to gain insight into behavior of the sand dunes. They also wanted to know the reason that why some of these dunes that are made of sandstone layers turned into hard rock few years ago. Accoridng to sources, the Curiosity rover is 200-yards away of "Dune 1" and is gathering information regarding the area's wind direction and speed. About 18 days back, the rover collected some rock samples and headed towards its mission to collect samples from sand dunes.
The rover landed on the surface of Mars in 2012 and since then it has collected nine samples with the latest sample as 'Greenhorn'. Earlier observations made on the Bagnold Dunes showed that the mineral composition is not equally distributed long the dunes. The new analysis of the Curiosity rover will help scientists know if the wind is sorting these minerals in the dunes and how particles of different sizes are being carried away with the winds.
Category:
Science
Space
Region:
United States
Entity:
NASA