Four months ago, NASA landed a one-ton, nuclear-powered rover on the Red Planet, scattering the Martian terrain with heaps of debris in the process. Curiosity, upon arrival, shed so much of its Entry Descent & Landing hardware that high resolution images of the planet's surface are still turning up traces of the rover's rubble. Let's review all the photographic evidence of NASA's space litter collected so far; after all: nobody's going to get around to picking up this mess for a while (or ever?) — so for now, we might as well enjoy the view.
Featured up top is one in a series of newly released images of the Red Planet's Curiosty-littered surface, photographed from Mars orbit by NASA's powerful HiRISE camera. The Agency thinks that the smear of debris and impact ejecta was left by one of two dense, 165-pound blocks of tungsten, jettisoned by the rover just before atmospheric entry. Click through to see more traces of the rover's cruise stage, and various other bits of spacecraft scrap.
A mosaic, created from two map-projected HiRISE images, reveals four large impacts and a number of smaller impacts, believed to have been made by the two 165-pound blocks of tungsten and various pieces of the rover's cruise stage. The two central impacts, the ones that are close to one another and similar in size, are thought to have originated from the tungsten blocks. The other two, notes HiRISE PI Alfred McEwen, "which have more asymmetric ejecta, may be from the cruise stage, which broke apart into two main pieces. " McEwen continues:
We were expecting to see just two impacts sites here—from the tungsten blocks—and it is highly unlikely that these dense blocks broke apart in the atmosphere. The only other source of impacts at nearly the same time and place is the cruise stage itself, which was more likely to break apart in the atmosphere.
A high-resolution closeup of the tungsten block impact site. The large impact craters created by the tungsten blocks were roughly 3—5 meters in diameter, "about what was expected," according to McEwen.
A high-resolution closeup of the second tungsten block impact site.
An animated GIF of impact markings left by six, 25-kilogram tungsten blocks released by the MSL descent stage after atmospheric entry.
This photograph, captured by HiRISE on August 7, shows the rover's massive descent parachute.
A high-resolution image of the crash site of Curiosity's rocket-powered sky crane, captured August 7. After gently placing the rover on the surface of Mars, the descent stage flew off to a safe distance before crash landing.
A detailed, hi-res view of the sky crane's impact site, photographed August 7. Via HiRISE:
The subimage shown here shows the sky crane's impact site, as the sky crane careened in roughly from the northwest. The impact disturbed the bright dust, revealing the darker rocky substrate. It was no light impact.
Possible pieces of the sky crane, appearing as small white dots within and at the end of the some of these dark streaks, are visible in the image and the zoomed-in version of the inset (arrows).
High resolution image of Curiosity's heatshield's crash site, photographed August 7.
A high-resolution photograph of the Curiosity rover and assorted EDL hardware, strewn about the martian surface — photographed August 7.
Not "litter" per se, but a stunning high-resolution, color-enhanced view of Curiosity. Colors have been enhanced here to highlight color variations near the rover, including the blast pattern left by the descent stage (colors that appear blue here would look more gray in person).
Color image of Curiosity's parachute and backshell, acquired September 2.
A high-resolution color image of the Sky Crane' crash site, acquired September 2.