As the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity is readied for a November-December 2011 launch window, Mars planetary scientists around the Earth are actively considering one of four primary landing sites and building digital terrain models (DTMs) of each site. The four potential landing sites were picked from among fifty candidate sites, reports Leonard David.
•Eberswalde crater: Contains a delta with phyllosilicates — clay-like minerals that preserve a record of long-term contact with water — thus, a potentially habitable environment that is particularly favorable to the preservation of organic materials, [video-1 and video-2].
•Holden crater: Contains finely layered phyllosilicates that are deposited in a standing body of water thought to be a lake, [video].
•Mawrth Vallis: Exposes an ancient preserved layered stratigraphic section of terrain that provides an opportunity to characterize early wetter conditions back to roughly the first billion years of Mars history, known as the Noachian era, [video lecture and video view].
•Gale crater: Offers access to diverse rock strata, including interbedded sulfates and phyllosilicates in a mound three miles (5 kilometers) high that reflects deposition during changing environmental conditions, [video-1 and video-2].
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