Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Nasa's Curiosity rover lifts its navigation cameras

First Navcam images

The robot vehicle has returned black and white images that capture part of its own body, its shadow on the ground and views off to the horizon.

Spectacular relief - the rim cliffs of the crater in which the rover landed - can be seen in the distance.

Curiosity - also known as the Mars Science Laboratory, MSL - put down on the Red Planet on Monday (GMT).

It came to rest on the floor of a deep depression on Mars' equator known as Gale Crater, close to a mountain.

The plan eventually is to take the rover to the base of this mountain where it is expected to find rocks that were laid down billions of years ago in the presence of liquid water.

Curiosity will probe these sediments for evidence that past environments on Mars could once have favoured microbial life.

Since its landing, engineers have been running through a list of health checks and tests.

The mast was stowed for the journey to Mars, lying flat on the deck of the rover.

Raising it into the vertical was the main task of Sol 2 - the second full Martian day of surface operations.

Locked in the upright, the masthead and its cameras stand some 2m above the ground.

Curiosity has two pairs of black and white, greyscale, navigation cameras which can aquire stereo imagery to help the rover pick a path across the surface.

These Navcams sit just to the side of two science cameras - one wideangle, one telephoto. It is these Mastcams that will provide the really exquisite, true colour views of the Martian landscape.

Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow me on Twitter



Source & Image : BBC

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