Sandstone Nodule Beside ‘Naukluft Plateau’ on Mount Sharp, Mars

The nodule in the center of this image from the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows individual grains of sand and (on the right) laminations from the sandstone deposit in which the nodule formed.

The site is an exposure of knobbly textured sandstone of the Stimson geological unit on Curiosity's onramp to "Naukluft Plateau." The image was taken on March 10, 2016, during the 1,277th Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity's work on Mars.

This nodule is about one inch (two centimeters) across. It appears within wider context in the left foreground of a Sol 1276 view (http://mars.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/?ImageID=7749) from Curiosity Mast Camera (Mastcam).

MAHLI was built by Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL designed and built the project's Curiosity rover.

More information about Curiosity is online at http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.nasa.gov/msl/.