NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover Successfully Reaches Mt. Sharp’s Bermuda Triangle After Multiple Attempts in 3 Years

Curiosity Mars rover made multiple attempts to reach the Red Planet's Gediz Vallis Ridge. On Monday (Sept. 18), the rover finally made it after three years, according to NASA.

Curiosity Mars Rover in Gediz Vallis Ridge

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has finally reached the precarious destination and recorded the formation in the ridge in a 360-degree panoramic mosaic. Previous expeditions were thwarted by "gator-back" rocks with knife-edged edges and too steep slopes. Curiosity reached where it could use its 7-foot (2-meter) robotic arm to investigate the long-sought ridge on Aug. 14 after completing one of the most challenging climbs the mission has ever encountered.

According to Ashwin Vasavada, the mission's project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, they finally found a spot for the rover after three years. He added that it was exciting to reach out and touch pebbles brought down from high up on Mount Sharp that Curiosity would never be able to reach.

Since 2014, the rover has been climbing Mount Sharp's lower, 3-mile (5-kilometer) peak, finding signs of ancient lakes and streams. The mountain's various layers stand for multiple periods in Martian history. Scientists are learning more about how the landscape has altered over time as Curiosity ascends. One of the newest geological time capsules Curiosity will view is Gediz Vallis Ridge, one of the mountain's last structures to form.

The Curiosity team dubbed GV Ridge "the 'Bermuda Triangle' of Mt. Sharp," based on a mission update from earlier this year. The team also stated they were only a few meters from the destination, and their anticipation was growing.

Scientists have now seen their first up-close views of the eroded remains of a geologic formation called a debris flow fan, where debris streaming down the slope spreads out into a fan shape, thanks to the rover's arrival at the ridge. Both on Mars and Earth, debris flow fans are abundant, although it is still unknown how they are created.

Geologist William Dietrich, a member of the mission team at the University of California, Berkeley, who has assisted in leading Curiosity's research of the ridge, said he couldn't imagine witnessing such events. They saw massive rocks ripped out of the mountain far above, raced downhill, and splayed into a fan below. What they saw reportedly pushed them to research more about the event, a natural hazard on Mars and Earth.

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Mars Curiosity Rover's 3 Failed Attempts

The rover has been exploring Mars for over a decade and has already made three attempts to reach the site but failed.

In 2020, the rover had some trouble accessing this long-sought region on the Red Planet after scaling a spot in 2021 known as the Greenheugh Pediment, which scientists say was a tremendously difficult-to-climb rock formation. In 2022, Curiosity came across "Gatorback" ridges with knife-edged rocks stippled along a potential approach to the ridge. "gator-back" refers to these rocks' resemblance to an alligator's back scales. They are thought to be formed of sandstone, making them the hardest rock type Curiosity had encountered on Mars.

After exploring the Marker Band Valley earlier this year, Curiosity encountered another difficulty en route to Gediz Vallis. Curiosity was left in fragile condition due to the adventure, which NASA stated was analogous to participating in a Martian "slip-and-slide."