NASA said its Curiosity Mars rover has finally reached the first Martian sand dune and captured some close-up images of the dunes’ sand grains. It is the first close encounter with a sand dune on any planet other than our home planet.

Curiosity captured new images with its Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera. Now, it will collect some samples from the sand dunes and study them using its laboratory instruments. It will investigate how the area has changed over the time. According to NASA, the car-sized robotic rover has started examining the sand dunes on the Red Planet.

“The individual dunes of the Bagnold band – which is located along the northwestern flank of Mount Sharp inside Gale Glacier – move up to 3 feet (1 meter) per year, based on observations from orbit”, the space agency explained.

At present, the Curiosity rover, which landed on Mars in 2012, is in the Northwest side of the Red Planet. It is analyzing the Martian sand’s lowest sedimentary layers, which may reveal about water on the fourth planet from the sun. Apart from onboard instrument, the rover is also using its wheels to study dunes of Martian sand.

The ongoing NASA mission’s goal is to gather clues that may reveal the Red Planet’s evolutionary past. It is also trying to find habitable areas on the planet. NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory Project is among those projects that were developed by the space agency to prepare humans for a mission on the planet in 2030.

According to the Tech Times, The Curiosity rover has finally reached the sand dunes on Mars that have so far only been looked at from afar. Not only that, but the rover managed to snap a number of images along the way, providing a detailed look at the dunes on Mars. The photos are part of an up-close investigation of the sand dunes, which are part of the lower portion of a layered mountain on the red planet.