NASA's Curiosity rover has been exploring the lower portion of Mount Sharp on Mars, and it’s just sent back a handful of colour images that give us unprecedented views of the strange rock formations on the Red Planet.
As you can see from the images below, Mars looks oddly familiar, and it’s gotten scientists pretty excited. "Curiosity's science team has been thrilled to go on this road trip through a bit of the American desert Southwest on Mars," says Curiosity project scientist, Ashwin Vasavada.
The images were taken on September 8 in the Murray Buttes region on the lower levels of Mount Sharp, which forms the central peak inside Mars’s colossal Gale crater.
First discovered back in the 1970s, the mountain appears to be a giant mound of eroded sedimentary layers that rises 5.5 km (18,000 feet) above the valley floor. It’s not clear where the layers came from, but it’s estimated that the mountain took some 2 billion years to form.
As the name implies, the Murray Buttes region is filled with formations called buttes and mesas, which are like small, rocky plateaus rising up from the mountain slope.
According to NASA, the rover team plans to assemble several large, colour mosaics from all the images taken at this location in the near future, but until then, just soak up the awesomeness of these incredible snaps.
Just don't forget to remind yourself that this is Mars the Red Planet, and it's 225 million km (140 million miles) away. Thank you, Curiosity! You really doing a great job.
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