Curiosity rover where is it now

And its odometer could keep ticking over for a while to come. The rover is in good health despite its relatively advanced age, mission team members have said, and its nuclear power system is designed to operate for a minimum of 14 years. All discussion of years in this story refers to Earth years.

Mars years are longer, each one lasting about Earth days. Curiosity isn't the only robot active on the Martian surface. Perseverance, which is modeled heavily on Curiosity, is hunting for signs of ancient Mars life and collecting samples for future return to Earth.

Perseverance traveled to Mars with the 4-pound 1. Mars Curiosity Rover. Zooming In and Out Zoom out to enjoy an overview of the journey so far, or zoom in to dig deeper at each stop along the way.

Left Panel: Layers Use the layers tool on the left side-bar to select or deselect the color base map, location labels, path or waypoints. Left Panel: Pin Select sites to explore by clicking the pin icon. Left Panel Bottom: Screen Shot The camera icon allows you to take a screenshot of a location and automatically download it from the site. Go to Surface Experience: Select Locations The boxes around several key locations on the map highlight several key spots.

Ingenuity is gearing up for its sixth Martian flight, and Perseverance is now beginning to sink its teeth into its own life-hunting, sample-collecting mission, after helping support and document the chopper's first five aerial forays. Follow him on Twitter michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter Spacedotcom or Facebook. Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more!

On Sol , Curiosity completed its steepest drive of the mission as it ascended the sandy slope below the Greenheugh pediment, a broad flat surface capped by a sandstone layer.

The rover took these images on Sol as it looked across the layered sandstones and back over the Glen Torridon region below. We all know Mars as the Red Planet, we see that in the night sky.

However, as our drill tailings gallery shows, once we drill just a small depth in to the interior, Mars can be very different. We have drilled successfully 29 times now and the sediments show a range of hues from ochre-red to blue-grey reflecting the minerals and fluids that passed through the ancient rocks. Drilling allows us to get through the top most, oxidized surface that has been most exposed to cosmic radiation. Curiosity in isolation at Glasgow.

Each of the pixels is about 25cm, so we can pick out the rover quite nicely in the centre of the field of view. We had just completed a drill at a site we named Glasgow.

Because of the lockdown an even greater proportion of rover operations was being done by staff working from home. But after eight Earth years, more than three Martian years and 29 drill holes - all is still working pretty well. The HiRISE image covers a region called Greenheugh pediment, part of the lower slopes of Mount Sharp which we will be slowly driving up over the next three years of an extended mission. It's in this next part of the mission that we expect to find a different sort of ancient environment to the earlier parts of the mission, with lots of sulphate minerals.

With no rain in the current climate, dust accumulates on the surface of Mars.