I'm John that's here with Bob Zimmerman keeps the website behind the black.

We're going exploring to curiosity the brave rover on Gail Crater, and we're looking now at a landscape that Bob provides

on behind the black.

I recommend it to everyone.

My first thought was that the freeway is clogged up with pollution down in the valley.

Bob, what am I looking at?

Yes, John, you're looking, this is a shot looking back across Gail Crater and looking at the rim of the

the rim of the crater 20 miles away.

I've got an overview back to give some, an overview map on this to give some context.

What's happening is that the... on this

happen what's happening is that the sun is now moving in between the earth and Mars happens every two years

when Mars is on one side of the solar system and the Earth is on the other with the

sign between and when that happens we go through a period of about three weeks, four

weeks in which no communications can occur on from Earth to Mars.

And so all the spacecraft on the planet

or in orbit around the planet

are basically

shutting down or being primed to work without human communications to the next three weeks.

This won't end until near the end of November.

And so this particular picture by Curiosity was a look back across its path, where it's been.

And looking across at the crater rim in the 25 miles distance and it's ironic you really even though the entire

travels of curiosity over the last 11 or so years is within this picture you can't see almost any of it because it's all been

...