After 18 months of driving, the U.S. space agency's Mars rover Curiosity has finally reached its prime destination, the base of Mount Sharp.
On Thursday, Sept. 11, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced that the car-sized robotic rover is already at the base of Mount Sharp (Aeolis Mons) an 18,000 foot-mountain that lies at the center of the Gale Crater and which scientists hope could shed light on the millions of years history of the Red planet as well as find evidence that Mars had once supported life.
"We have been driving hard for many months to reach the entry point to Mount Sharp," said Curiosity Deputy Project Manager Jennifer Trosper, from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. "Now that we've made it, we'll be adjusting the operations style from a priority on driving to a priority on conducting the investigations needed at each layer of the mountain."
Curiosity touched down inside Gale Grater on Aug. 6, 2012 and it did not take long for it to discover a region geologically and chemically suited to support microbial life. Scientists then embarked on another task to find environmental niches that do not only suggest Mars once sustained life but also have preserved remains of this existence. NASA chose Mount Sharp because it may shows signs of biological life that may have once thrived on the Red Planet.
Curiosity reached the base of Mount Sharp ahead of schedule and after scientists decided to make changes to its initial route earlier this year. The Curiosity team had to switch routes because of the excessive wheel wear caused by the terrain littered with sharp, embedded rocks leading the rover to a smoother terrain.
The rover will reach an outcrop called Pahrump Hills within two weeks where it will drill for samples of Mount Sharp's rocks before proceeding to the Murray Formation, which forms the base of the Mountain. Scientists hope that during the rover's trek, it will find more rocks that could provide more evidence that the Red Planet has not always been so red.
"At the Murray Formation, we potentially have millions to tens of millions of years of Martian history just waiting for us to explore," said Curiosity Rover Mission Scientist Kathryn Stack. "If the past two years of Curiosity's exploration are any indication, we're going to see things, exciting things that we've never seen before and couldn't possibly have anticipated.
