Gallery | Mars Curiosity - Week 1 | Exposed bedrock

The surface of Mars is largely gray basaltic rock, much of it covered with a fine layer of red dust that gives the planet its ruddy hue. As the sky crane lowered the rover down, in some spots the exhaust from the rockets blew around the dust and sand from eroded rock, exposing the bedrock underneath. This plot of ground near the rover shows that very well! In the upper right you can see the surface is discolored (the blue-gray basalt poking through), and the material blown around a bit. The bedrock is the flattish looking structure, with one flat-surfaced piece sticking up a few centimeters. Curiosity is designed to look at the geology of the region, and it gets this science for free just for landing there and blowing things around a bit.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems

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