Category: Blogs

Written by Lucy Thompson, Planetary Scientist and APXS team member, University of New Brunswick, Canada Earth planning date: Monday, Dec. 22, 2025 As we all prepare for the holiday season here on Earth, we have been planning a few last activities before Curiosity and the team of scientists and engineers take a well-deserved, extended break. […]

Written by Noah Martin, Ph.D. student and Candice Bedford, Research Scientist at Purdue University While much of Perseverance’s work focuses on ancient rocks that record Mars’ long-lost rivers and lakes, megaripples offer a rare opportunity to examine processes that are still shaping the surface today. Megaripples are sand ripples up to 2 meters (about 6.5 […]

Written by Lucy Lim, Planetary Scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Earth Planning Date: Friday, Dec. 12, 2025 The weekend drive starting from the “Nevado Sajama” drill site brought Curiosity back into the “Monte Grande” boxwork hollow. We’ve been in this hollow before for the “Valle de la Luna” drill campaign, but now that […]

Written by Margaret Deahn, Ph.D. student at Purdue University  NASA’s Mars 2020 rover is currently trekking towards exciting new terrain. After roughly four months of climbing up and over the rim of Jezero crater, the rover is taking a charming tour of the plains just beyond the western crater rim, fittingly named “Lac de Charmes.” […]

Written by Michelle Minitti, MAHLI Deputy Principal Investigator at Framework Earth planning date: Friday, Nov. 14, 2025 From Curiosity’s ridge-top perch among the boxwork unit, the highlight of the week was the successful drilling of the “Nevado Sajama” target. The data collected by APXS, ChemCam, and MAHLI from the rover workspace and its immediate vicinity […]

Written by Catherine O’Connell-Cooper, APXS Strategic Planner and Payload Uplink/Downlink Lead, University of New Brunswick, Canada Earth planning date: Friday, Nov. 7, 2025 We are in the most intensive phase of the boxwork structures investigation — the drill campaign. The boxwork campaign group requested a pair of drilled targets — one in a hollow (the […]

Written by William Farrand, Senior Research Scientist, Space Science Institute Earth planning date: Friday, Oct. 24, 2025 Curiosity has successfully drilled its 44th hole on Mars, which is a major milestone in our investigation of the enigmatic “boxwork unit,” a region of resistant ridges surrounding pits or “hollows” of less-resistant rock. The drilling took place […]

Written by Catherine O’Connell-Cooper, APXS Payload Uplink/Downlink Lead, University of New Brunswick Earth planning date: Friday, Oct. 17, 2025 Curiosity has been investigating the “boxwork unit” for several months now. Readers might remember we drilled at the edge of the boxwork at “Altadena,” back in June. Since then, we have driven just under a kilometer […]

Written by Diana Hayes, Graduate Student at York University, Toronto Earth planning date: Friday, Oct. 10, 2025 This week was one of seasonal changes and milestones for the mission. As was mentioned several weeks ago, Mars has now moved out of its “cloudy season” and is transitioning into the “dusty season” as the planet moves […]

Written by Michelle Minitti, MAHLI Deputy Principal Investigator at Framework Earth planning date: Friday, Oct. 3, 2025 Before Curiosity landed 13 years ago, the science team eyed all the geologic wonders scattered across the flanks of Mount Sharp and looked forward to the day when we could put the rover to work on them. We […]