Man-Made Mars Craters Likely Beyond Curiosity Rover's Reach

                                                                                             PIC SOURCE : NASA

 It looks like there will be no shortcuts to peer beneath the surface of Mars for NASA's Curiosity rover.

Mission scientists had held out some hope that the 1-ton rover might be able to explore fresh impact craters produced by ballast ejected during the Curiosity rover's landing Sunday night (Aug. 5). But new images from a NASA Mars orbiter suggest that reaching those craters may be too tough, since a treacherous stretch of sand dunes lies in the way, researchers said.

"We would have to do an enormous U-turn around the dune field, and I just don't think it's going to be practical to do that," Curiosity chief scientist John Grotzinger, of Caltech in Pasadena, told reporters Wednesday (Aug. 8).