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NASA’s Curiosity rover finds a mysterious honeycomb landscape on Mars (www.sciencedaily.com)

submitted 1 day ago by gedaliyah@lemmy.world to c/science@lemmy.world

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NASA’s Curiosity rover has entered a Martian valley covered by an astonishing “sea” of tiny polygon-shaped fractures. The honeycomb patterns, each only a few inches wide, stretch across the landscape and even wrap around a nearby 20-foot-tall butte.

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[-] jaybone@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 day ago

Does that mean this mountain could be a volcano?

Billions of years ago, lakes and streams were scattered across the lower foothills of Mount Sharp, a 3-mile-tall (5-kilometer-tall) mountain that Curiosity has been climbing since 2014.

Also has this rover been climbing the same mountain for 12 years? How close is it to the top?

[-] tb_@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

The rover's speed is measured in meters per day I'm pretty sure, it goes at a very slow pace.

Edit: yes. Given tests I imagine it frequently travels a lot less than that.

Based on variables including power levels, terrain difficulty, slippage and visibility, the maximum terrain-traverse speed is estimated to be 200 m (660 ft) per day by automatic navigation.

Further edit: NASA has an interactive map of its journey so far, neat.
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/msl-curiosity/location-map/