page_title: Aeolis quadrangle
section_title: Gale Crater
hierarchical_section_title: Aeolis quadrangle / Gale Crater
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: The Aeolis quadrangle is one of a series of 30 quadrangle maps of Mars used by the United States Geological Survey Astrogeology Research Program. The Aeolis quadrangle is also referred to as MC-23.
  The Aeolis quadrangle covers 180° to 225° W and 0° to 30° south on Mars, and contains parts of the regions Elysium Planitia and Terra Cimmeria. A small part of the Medusae Fossae Formation lies in this quadrangle.
  The name refers to the name of a floating western island of Aiolos, the ruler of the winds. In Homer's account, Odysseus received the west wind Zephyr here and kept it in bags, but the wind got out.
  It is famous as the site of two spacecraft landings: the Spirit rover landing site in Gusev crater, and the Curiosity rover in Gale Crater.
  A large, ancient river valley, called Ma'adim Vallis, enters at the south rim of Gusev Crater, so Gusev Crater was believed to be an ancient lake bed. However, it seems that a volcanic flow covered up the lakebed sediments. Apollinaris Patera, a large volcano, lies directly north of Gusev Crater.
context_section_description: Gale Crater, in the northwestern part of the Aeolis quadrangle, is of special interest to geologists because it contains a 2–4 km (1.2–2.5 mile) high mound of layered sedimentary rocks.  On 28 March 2012 this mound was named "Mount Sharp" by NASA in honor of Robert P. Sharp (1911–2004), a planetary scientist of early Mars missions. More recently, on 16 May 2012, Mount Sharp was officially named Aeolis Mons by the USGS and IAU.  The mound extends higher than the rim of the crater, so perhaps the layering covered an area much larger than the crater. These layers are a complex record of the past.  The rock layers probably took millions of years to be laid down within the crater, then more time to be eroded to make them visible.  The 5 km high mound is probably the thickest single succession of sedimentary rocks on Mars.  The lower formation may date from near the Noachian age, while the upper layer, separated by an erosional unconformity, may be as young as the Amazonian period. The lower formation may have formed the same time as parts of Sinus Meridiani and Mawrth Vallis.  The mound that lies in the center of Gale Crater was created by winds. Because the winds eroded the mound on one side more than another, the mound is skewed to one side, rather than being symmetrical. The upper layer may be similar to layers in Arabia Terra.  Sulfates and Iron oxides have been detected in the lower formation and anhydrous phases in the upper layer.  There is evidence that the first phase of erosion was followed by more cratering and more rock formation.  Also of interest in Gale Crater is Peace Vallis, officially named by the IAU on September 26, 2012,  which 'flows' down out of the Gale Crater hills to the Aeolis Palus below, and which seems to have been carved by flowing water. On December 9, 2013, NASA reported that, based on evidence from Curiosity studying Aeolis Palus, Gale Crater contained an ancient freshwater lake which could have been a hospitable environment for microbial life.  Gale Crater contains a number of fans and deltas that provide information about lake levels in the past.  These formations are: Pancake Delta, Western Delta, Farah Vallis delta and the Peace Vallis Fan.
caption: Curiosity's view of Mount Sharp (September 20, 2012; white balanced) (raw color).
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