This map shows the route driven by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover from the location where it landed in August 2012 to its location in December 2016, which is in the upper half of a geological unit called the Murray formation, on lower Mount Sharp.
<p>Blue triangles mark waypoints investigated by Curiosity during the rover's two-year prime mission and first two-year extended mission. The "Hematite Unit" and "Clay Unit" are key destinations for the second two-year extension, through September 2018. An approximate possible route is indicated for studying those layers of the mountain.
</p><p>The base image for the map is from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. North is up. Bagnold Dunes form a band of dark, wind-blown material at the foot of Mount Sharp.
</p><p>The scale bar at lower right represents one kilometer (0.62 mile). For broader-context images of the area, see <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA17355">PIA17355</a>, <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA16064">PIA16064</a> and <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA16058">PIA16058</a>.
</p><p>Presented at the 2016 AGU Fall Meeting on Dec. 13. in San Francisco, CA.
</p><p>NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.
</p>
For more information about Curiosity, visit <a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="http://www.nasa.gov/msl">http://www.nasa.gov/msl</a> and <a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl">http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl</a>.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
<b><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA21144">Catalog page</a></b><span style="white-space:nowrap"> <b>·</b></span> Full-res (<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA21144.jpg">JPEG</a><span style="white-space:nowrap"> <b>·</b></span> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/tiff/PIA21144.tif">TIFF</a>)