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| View From Curiosity's Arm-Mounted Camera After a Long Drive |
GUEST BLOG—By NASA--The Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera
on NASA's Curiosity rover is carried at an angle when the rover's arm is stowed
for driving. Still, the camera is able
to record views of the terrain Curiosity is crossing in Gale Crater, and
rotating the image 150 degrees provides this right-side-up scene.
The
scene is toward the south, including a portion of Mount Sharp and a band of
dark dunes in front of the mountain. It
was taken on the 340th Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity's work on Mars, shortly
after Curiosity finished a 329.1-foot (100.3-meter) drive on that sol. The
drive was twice as long as any previous sol's drive by Curiosity.
When
the robotic arm, turret, and MAHLI are stowed, the MAHLI is looking out from
the front left side of the rover. This is much like the view from the driver's
side of cars sold in the USA.
The
main purpose of Curiosity's MAHLI camera is to acquire close-up,
high-resolution views of rocks and soil at the rover's Gale Crater field site.
The camera is capable of focusing on any target at distances of about 0.8 inch
(2.1 centimeters) to infinity. This means it can, as shown here, also obtain
pictures of the Martian landscape.
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