NASA's Curiosity rover, currently doing its best impression of a mountain goat on Mars, spent the week climbing up Mount Sharp, where scientists have spotted what they call an 'erosional supersurface' - a fancy term for a spot where wind or water stripped away some rock layers before new ones were deposited, leaving a noticeable gap in the planet's geological diary. It's like finding a page torn out of a history book, except the book is made of sediment and the page was removed by ancient Martian weather.

Scientists have been eyeing this particular layer for months, and now Curiosity is close enough to give it a proper once-over. The rover's instruments will provide a 'geologist's-eye view' of the feature, which sounds adorable and also scientifically useful for understanding its composition and centimeter-scale geometry - because on Mars, even centimeters matter.

This week's plans involved imaging the potential supersurface from multiple angles. Over the weekend, the rover backed away to get a good look, setting up Monday's massive Mastcam mosaics across the entire layer. ChemCam pitched in with long-distance RMI images of the most interesting bits. Meanwhile, the team measured the composition of rocks at the bottom of the surface, targeting 'Monte Darwin' for MAHLI and APXS, and 'Patacamaya,' 'Tarucachi,' and 'Mojoncasa' for ChemCam LIBS - because naming rocks after places on Earth is apparently a tradition.

Monday's drive brought Curiosity closer to the supersurface, with some wheel inspection along the way. The team used the images to pick the most scientifically interesting spot to cross, while also considering the rover's practical limitations - there's sandy, steeply sloping terrain around, and they'd rather not get the rover stuck in a cosmic sand trap. If all goes well, next week Curiosity will go up and over the supersurface. Stay tuned, because this is the kind of edge-of-your-seat action you expect from a six-wheeled robot on a planet 140 million miles away.