NASA's Curiosity rover finally reached another target destination on Mars, exploring the two story high sand dunes that are located on the lower base of Mount Sharp as it will start its new investigation of these remarkable features.

These new images are the first ever ones to provide a detailed view of these Martian dunes for further investigation. Curiosity's mission is to extract some samples of material that are found in the dunes for further testing and analysis using its suite of onboard scientific instruments.

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The rover's new images of the dunes reveal a rippled surface taken from a site known as High Dune which is also found in the region called Bagnold Dunes in the northwestern part of Mount Sharp including a photo of the rover's wheel track that exposed the material underneath the surface of the sand sheets.

Using the onboard Mast Camera (Mastcam), the rover captured photos of the dunes during its exploration period on November 27, where the rover will determine the significant changes at the dunes over time. NASA already obtained observations from its Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter from lower orbit that revealed that the edges of each dune apparently move as much as three feet every year.

Curiosity rover landed on Mars in August 2012 where it has been travelling around the base of Mount Sharp inside Gale Crater, after it completed an investigation of outcroppings within the area of its landing site. In 2014, it finally arrived at Mars' highest point, Mount Sharp, where its main mission is to examine the higher layers in the central peak of the crater.

Mount Sharp is about three miles high where the rover is also investigating the lowest sediment layers that already exposed evidence for water that fills a "lake" on the Red Planet and then evaporates after during Martian seasons.

The ongoing NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Project's goal is for the Martian rover to search for ancient environments for clues about the Red Planet's evolutionary past and to also determine potential habitable sites on Mars. NASA also aims to send humans to Mars by the 2030s. 

TagsNASA mars curiosity rover, sand dunes curiosity rover mars, mars sand dunes, Curiosity Rover, Mars