Blog Curiosity, Sols 4622-4623: Beginner (land) year 14 with an investigation into the veins
Written by Abigail Fraeman, scientist of the assistant project in the NASA propulsion laboratory
Date of planning of the earth: Wednesday August 6, 2025.
Today was a very special day for curiosity while the rover celebrated the start of a 14th Year on March. Curiosity currently explores the mysterious boxwork training. On Monday, the rover positioned itself on the side of one of the ridges, where the team had spotted attractive clues of a complex network of thin razor veins which can give an overview of what keeps the ridges, compared to the surrounding hollows.
In this plan, the team will use the instruments on the arm and mast of curiosity to study the geometry and the composition of these veins to find out more about them. Apxs and Mahli will both observe “Rechón”, a loose block with a marbled and marbled material exposed on top, as well as “Lago Poopó”, a brilliant and relatively clean venous network. Mahli will also collect a side view of “Souchón”. Chemcam will use her laser to analyze two targets, “Vicha”, a protruding vein edge with a nodular texture, and “Ibare”, which has light veins exposed. Apart from the venous investigation, the CHEMCAM’s telescopic RMI camera will observe the superimposition in a characteristic of Butte and Mishe Mokwa nearby, while Mastcam will take the mosaics on “Cachiniba”, a broken block, “Yapacani”, the side of another large box of box and “llullailaco”, a function of Faraway that we imagined from a plan previous. Additional environmental surveillance observations will complete the plan, followed by a tradition in a straight line in the east, in an area where several large boxwork crests meet that the team has informally called “the sign of peace” because of its form.
I usually become nostalgic around landing birthdays, or “Landisters”, and this year, I found myself looking back through photos of the landing night. One of my favorites shows me next to the member of the scientific team Kirsten Siebach just after receiving the first images of Curiosity. We both have the biggest and most excited on our faces. We were both graduate students at the time, and we both wrote the thesis chapters one day orbital data on regions that we hoped to explore with curiosity. I studied a layer with Mount Sharp which contained hematite, and the team named this characteristic “Vera Rubin Ridge” when curiosity reached it in 2017. Kirsten, who is now a professor at Rice University, was concentrated on boxing structures, reflecting on the way they formed and hypothetizing what they could tell us about the story of Martian habit when we trained them and hypotheses.
Thirteen years later, I had another big smile on my face today, while I listened to Kirsten and our incredible members of the scientific team enthusiastically discussing new images of Curiosity of these same boxwork structures. I was also filled with gratitude for the thousands of people it took to bring us at this time. It was the best absolute way to spend a Landist.
