Curiosity rover updates: three new posts by Deborah Padgett, Sharon Wilson Purdy, and Ashley Stroupe:

Even the Best-Laid Plans https://science.nasa.gov/blog/sols-4475-4476-even-the-best-laid-plans/
Bumping Back to Business https://science.nasa.gov/blog/sols-4477-4478-bumping-back-to-business/
What IS That Lumpy, Bumpy Rock? https://science.nasa.gov/blog/sols-4479-4480-what-is-that-lumpy-bumpy-rock/

Curiosity Rover in Gale crater: A drive of ~33 meters during Sol 4483 (March 17, 2025). The drive direction was southwest with a small detour to check out a rock formation, the rover climbed 2.2 meters during the ~59 minute drive. Post drive L-NavCam, the drive data extracted from JPL's waypoint JSON, and a couple of traverse maps (different scales). Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

1/9 Martian Potato1

Animation of Phobos Over Mars: a time lapse from 2007 to 2021

Full size & info: https://flic.kr/p/2qREua9
Credit: ESA/DLR/FUBerlin/AndreaLuck CC BY

8 frames, captured by ESA Mars Express. It's stabilized on Phobos (Todd crater) to play with the disorienting effect.

All images below

Check out also my Album about Phobos on Flickr: https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjAvrQL

Curiosity's latest workspace imaged on mission sol 4480 (March 14, 2025 ) after a drive of 24 meters (~79 ft). This composite image is assembled from 15 overlapping L-MastCam sub-frame images. The workspace covers an area about 2 meters (~6.5 feet) across, and shows details within the workspace accessible to the instruments and tools on the rover's 2 meter-long robotic arm. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

A mosaic captured by Perseverance 9 hours ago. A lot of diversity in the rocks down there, explore it interactively with this zoom app: https://zoomhub.net/PV24J

#Mars Sol 1446 - Mar. 15, 2025
Credits images: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU

Just a few sols after successfully sealing the challenging Green Gardens core, Perseverance roved on to the Broom Point workspace to collect another sample called Main River.

Check out this post by Denise Buckner, Postdoctoral Fellow at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
https://science.nasa.gov/blog/navigating-a-slanted-river/

Curiosity Rover - Sol 4497: Yet More interesting rock textures in this Bayer reconstructed R-MastCam. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/fredk

A rock with a dome-like structure, captured 12 hours ago by Curiosity in the canyon between Texoli Butte and Gould Mesa. It is mentioned in the latest mission update, by Sharon Wilson Purdy: https://science.nasa.gov/blog/sols-4477-4478-bumping-back-to-business/

#Mars Mar. 14, 2025 (Sol 4480)
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Another day, another drive for Perseverance rover. This short drive was completed during mission sol 1445 (March 14, 2025). Arriving at site 70.0.

Attached is a roughly processed post-drive 4-tile L-NavCam image, the drive data and screen capture of the mission map. The dogleg traverse distance was just 6.45 meters (~21 ft) west-northwest. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UofA.

Deimos Over Terra Sabaea by ESA Hera Mission taken just 2 days ago!

Full size image: https://flic.kr/p/2qRV5QD

ESA Hera
Gravity-assist flyby of #Mars
Distance 1000 KM
March 12, 2025

Colourised image processed from: https://www.esa.int/Space_Safety/Hera/Hera_asteroid_mission_spies_Mars_s_Deimos_moon

For the colourisation, I've used a reference image by ESA's Mars Express of this area: HO544_000 in RGB, taken on 2023-06-09 (raw data available at https://psa.esa.int)

Credit: ESA/AFC/DLR/FUBerlin/AndreaLuck CC BY

A view of "Broom Point" where Perseverance collected the "Main River" sample two days ago

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/mars-2020-perseverance/mars-rock-samples/

#Mars Mar. 12, 2025 (Sol 1443)
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU