page_title: Mount Sharp
section_title: Curiosity mission
hierarchical_section_title: Mount Sharp / Spacecraft exploration / Curiosity mission
caption_attribution_description: English: PIA16768: Mount Sharp Panorama in White-Balanced Colors http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA16768 Target Name:	Mars Is a satellite of:	Sol (our sun) Mission: Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Spacecraft: Curiosity Instrument: Mastcam Product Size:	14576 x 2018 pixels (width x height) Produced By: Malin Space Science Systems Full-Res TIFF: PIA16768.tif (88.26 MB) Full-Res JPEG: PIA16768.jpg (2.085 MB) Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original) Original Caption Released with Image: This mosaic of images from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity shows Mount Sharp in a white-balanced color adjustment that makes the sky look overly blue but shows the terrain as if under Earth-like lighting. White-balancing helps scientists recognize rock materials based on their experience looking at rocks on Earth. The Martian sky would look more of a butterscotch color to the human eye. White balancing yields an overly blue hue in images that have very little blue information, such as Martian landscapes, because the white balancing tends to overcompensate for the low inherent blue content. Mount Sharp, also called Aeolis Mons, is a layered mound in the center of Mars' Gale Crater, rising more than 3 miles (5 kilometers) above the crater floor, where Curiosity has been working since the rover's landing in August 2012. Lower slopes of Mount Sharp are the major destination for the mission, though the rover will first spend many more weeks around a location called "Yellowknife Bay," where it has found evidence of a past environment favorable for microbial life. This mosaic was assembled from dozens of images from the 100-millimeter-focal-length telephoto lens camera mounted on the right side of the Mastcam instrument. The component images were taken during the 45th Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity's mission on Mars (Sept. 20, 2012). The sky has been filled out by extrapolating color and brightness information from the portions of the sky that were captured in images of the terrain. A raw-color version of the mosaic is available at PIA16769. Raw color shows the scene's colors as they would look in a typical smart-phone camera photo. Curiosity's Mastcam was built and is operated by Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project and the mission's Curiosity rover for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The rover was designed and assembled at JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. More information about Curiosity is online at http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS Image Addition Date: 2013-03-15
context_page_description: Mount Sharp, officially Aeolis Mons, is a mountain on Mars. It forms the central peak within Gale crater and is located around 5.08°S 137.85°E, rising 5.5 km high from the valley floor. Its ID in the United States Geological Survey's Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature is 15000.
  On August 6, 2012, Curiosity landed in "Yellowknife" Quad 51 of Aeolis Palus, next to the mountain. NASA named the landing site Bradbury Landing on August 22, 2012. Aeolis Mons is a primary goal for scientific study. On June 5, 2013, NASA announced that Curiosity would begin an 8 km journey from the Glenelg area to the base of Aeolis Mons. On November 13, 2013, NASA announced that an entryway the rover would traverse on its way to Aeolis Mons was to be named "Murray Buttes", in honor of planetary scientist Bruce C. Murray. The trip was expected to take about a year and would include stops along the way to study the local terrain.
  On September 11, 2014, NASA announced that Curiosity had reached Aeolis Mons, the rover mission's long-term prime destination.
  On October 5, 2015, possible recurrent slope lineae, wet brine flows, were reported on Mount Sharp near Curiosity.
context_section_description: As of July 29, 2020, Curiosity has been on the planet Mars for 2836 sols (2914 total days) since landing on August 6, 2012. Since September 11, 2014, Curiosity has been  exploring the slopes of Mount Sharp, where more information about the history of Mars is expected to be found. As of early March 2020, the rover has traveled over 21.92 km (13.62 mi) and climbed over 327 m (1,073 ft) in elevation to, and around, the mountain base since landing at "Bradbury Landing" in August 2012.
caption: Curiosity's view of "Mount Sharp" (September 20, 2012; white balanced) (raw color).
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