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The Curiosity Rover lives inside a crater called the Gale Crater, which is 3.8 billion years old and it's likely to hold some clues to Mars' past (perhaps in it's clay). Curiosity has been climbing the peak of Mount Sharp for some time now, and right now it's making it's way up an eroded pediment called Central Butte at the base of Mount Sharp. It's studying the weather-eroded rocks that can be seen in the photos.
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These photos were shot by the navigation cameras, which only take black and white photos - unlike Curiosity's other photos. There are seventeen cameras attached to Curiosity, and as many areas of the Gale Crater are difficult for the six-wheeled rover to travel on, taking photos of the foreign landscape around it is the next most important thing Curiosity can do.
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The Central Butte is a geologically important area to study, as the layers of sedimentary rock could hold answers to whether there was once water on Mars.
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Curiosity is also able to analyse different colored rocks that suggest layers of stratigraphic units. Some of the photos it takes also have a multispectral approach, based on the principle that such pictures can be used to identify differences in rock types that a human eye might otherwise miss.
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After Curiosity finishes examining this side of the butte, it will travel to the other side to conduct new experiments. So, yes, we can expect more interesting images from Mars. What a time to be alive.
Curiosity Rover Sent Back Eerie B&W Photos of Mars
As you might know, NASA's Curiosity Rover, a car-sized robot that snaps super cute selfies, has been roaming around Mars for seven years. It's purpose is to find life on the Red Planet, but in the meantime it's been taking chemical samples of the earth (is that what we call it?) on Mars and sending us back some cool photos. In the most recent installment of Mars photography, Curiosity took some black and white photos that are desolate, lonely and a little creepy. But what else could we expect from a planet that is devoid of any life (until we find it)? Check out Curiosity's latest photos below.
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