Curiosity’s Uncommon Glow Captured in Nighttime Glimpse into Mars’ Hidden Layers

NASA’s Curiosity rover has been trudging about within the Martian sand for over a decade now, transmitting an countless flood of data within the vibrant Martian daylight. Nonetheless, on December 6, 2025, or Sol 4740 of its mission, a big occasion in Curiosity’s lengthy mission historical past came about when engineers used its lights to take a collection of photographs.

We’re speaking about a picture of a freshly drilled rock, which was dug by the Curiosity rover and has been named Nevado Sajama, which is the title of a volcanic mountain positioned in Bolivia. The drilling course of used right here resulted within the partitions of the outlet being smoother than common, with out the presence of mud which might hinder the view. It was a possibility to look intently on the rock and verify for any indicators of layering on the floor of the rock.

Daylight on Mars has a reddish tinge, making colours tough to determine and small options indistinguishable. Nonetheless, to keep away from this drawback, the scientists waited until night time after which positioned the robotic arm in order that the Mars Hand Lens Imager, or MAHLI for brief, might level its white gentle LEDs into the outlet. By the way, these LEDs have a low energy output, similar to a handful of candles fairly than a blazing torch.

Its Mast Digicam snapped the photograph with its high-def right-eye lens, and a crystal-clear picture was created. The picture was taken with a 5-second publicity to make sure that sufficient gentle was captured from the LEDs to indicate the drill gap in crisp readability. There are indicators of stratification, which can assist decide whether or not this rock was shaped by historic water flows or mineral deposits.

Nighttime work with the rover is unusual, since they like to function in the course of the day once they can obtain sufficient vitality and visibility from pure sunshine. The MAHLI’s LEDs usually fill in any deep shadows seen inside holes or instrument inlets. Beforehand, the Curiosity group tried a number of night time photographs to get a greater have a look at the partitions of the drill holes, however these didn’t work very effectively since changes to the drilling {hardware} had left many of the holes too irregular to get a significant view. Nonetheless, Nevado Sajama was totally different. The clear partitions made the additional work worthwhile, offering the scientists with a brand new perspective on the rock’s composition with out all the day’s mud in the way in which.
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