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During the month of April Mars will be in conjunction relative to the Earth. This means the Sun is in the line-of-sight between Earth and Mars, and communication between the two planets is almost impossible. For conjunction, the rovers and orbiting spacecraft at Mars continue to operate, but do not send the data to Earth. This recorded data will be sent to Earth when Mars moves away from the sun and the line-of-sight between Earth and Mars is reestablished. During conjunctionthe THEMIS image of the day will be a visual tour of Gale Crater, the location of the newest rover Curiosity.

The highest elevations of Mt. Sharp are just outside this image (to the east). In the center of this image is a channel. This channel indicates that fluids have played a part in eroding Mt. Sharp. Other erosion features indicate that wind probably also has played a part in eroding the deposit.

Orbit Number: 35214 Latitude: -5.15393 Longitude: 137.472 Instrument: VIS Captured: 2009-11-21 19:07

Please see the THEMIS Data Citation Note for details on crediting THEMIS images.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the 2001 Mars Odyssey mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) was developed by Arizona State University, Tempe, in collaboration with Raytheon Santa Barbara Remote Sensing. The THEMIS investigation is led by Dr. Philip Christensen at Arizona State University. Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, is the prime contractor for the Odyssey project, and developed and built the orbiter. Mission operations are conducted jointly from Lockheed Martin and from JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.