3D print Gale crater and Mount Sharp on Mars
Curiosity's home on one print: the whole crater rim and the layered mountain in its middle, from Mars elevation data.
Where it is 5.37°S 137.81°E Mars
- Diameter
- 154 km (96 mi)
- Mount Sharp
- About 5.5 km (3.4 mi) above the crater floor
- Curiosity landed
- August 6, 2012 (UTC)
- Named for
- Walter F. Gale, Australian astronomer (1865-1945)
181 by 180 km of Mars, 160 mm across
About Gale crater and Mount Sharp
Gale is an impact crater 154 km (96 mi) across, just south of the Martian equator. A mountain of layered rock rises about 5.5 km (3.4 mi) from its floor: Aeolis Mons, better known as Mount Sharp after the geologist Robert P. Sharp.
NASA's Curiosity rover landed on the plain north of the mountain on August 6, 2012 (UTC), and has been climbing its lower slopes since. In 2013 rock it drilled near the landing site showed that ancient Mars could have supported microbes.
Sources: IAU Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature: Gale, IAU Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature: Aeolis Mons, NASA JPL: Curiosity cradled by Gale crater, NASA JPL: Curiosity lands beside a Martian mountain, NASA JPL: Conditions once suited for ancient life, NASA Science: Curiosity
