Gale Crater
Gale Crater is a 154-kilometer-wide impact basin on Mars that contains a central mound of layered sediments known as Mount Sharp. It was selected as the landing site for NASA's Curiosity rover due to its potential to preserve organic molecules and other signs of past life.
Source: science.nasa.gov
APODs including "Gale Crater"
A Crumbling Layered Butte on Mars
05/10/2016
What is this unusual mound on Mars? NASA's Curiosity rover rolling across Mars has come across a group of these mounds that NASA has labelled Murray Buttes. Pictured is a recently assembled mosaic image of one of the last of the buttes passed by Curiosity on its way up Mt. Sharp -- but also one of the most visually spectacular. Ancient water-deposited layers in relatively dense -- but now dried-out and crumbling -- windblown sandstone tops the 15-meter tall structure. The rim of Gale crater is visible in the distance. Curiosity continues to accumulate clues about how Mars changed from a planet with areas wet and hospitable to microbial life to the dry, barren, rusted landscape seen today.