Forgot all about Curiosity, didn’t you? The veteran Mars rover spent most of final month climbing a mild slope often known as the Greenheugh Pediment, however now it has to show again after encountering sharp rocks that would injury its wheels.

Though just lately overshadowed by the brand-spanking-new Perseverance rover, which is learning a dried up crater lake for indicators of fossilized microbial life, the Curiosity rover continues to be very a lot alive and properly on the Red Planet. Curiosity is learning geology on a lofty Martian mountaintop, which is the way it got here throughout the fascinating (albeit bothersome) rock formation.

The rocks are sandstone ventifacts—stones sharpened by years and years of wind-driven erosion—and are nicknamed ‘gator back’ rocks for his or her resemblance to the Earth reptile’s bumpy dorsal facet. Curiosity encountered them on March 18 on the pediment’s south facet, atop the three.4-mile-tall Mount Sharp that the rover has been climbing since 2014. (In the winter, the rover captured some arresting photos from its lofty outpost.)

“From a distance, we can see car-sized boulders that were transported down from higher levels of Mount Sharp – maybe by water relatively late in Mars’ wet era,” stated Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity’s challenge scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in a NASA release. “We don’t really know what they are, so we wanted to see them up close.”

According to NASA, the rocks aren’t impassable however would significantly climate Curiosity’s wheels. The Curiosity group determined traversing the stones wasn’t price it. Instead, the subsequent couple of weeks will see the rover descend the Greenheugh Pediment to an space coated with clay and sulfates. On a extra historical Mars, the area featured streams and ponds, which dried up as the Martian local weather modified. (The similar motive that Perseverance’s Jezero Crater is not a large lake).

“It was really cool to see rocks that preserved a time when lakes were drying up and being replaced by streams and dry sand dunes,” stated Abigail Fraeman, Curiosity’s deputy challenge scientist, within the launch. “I’m really curious to see what we find as we continue to climb on this alternate route.”

Though Curiosity persists—it’s now been roving Mars for almost a decade—it’s displaying indicators of damage, a part of the explanation the group backed down from the gator again rocks. The rover’s robotic arms have braking mechanisms which have stopped working, although the machine continues to be capable of drill rock samples. On a dry planet lengthy devoid of water, the Martian stones are each the boon and bane of scientific operations.

More: NASA and ESA Change Plans for Ambitious Mars Sample Return Mission