Curiosity Avoids a Field of Knives

Mars is a dangerous place for machines:

 

These rocks, known as ventifacts, are wind-sharpened rocks, and Curiosity has had a previous run-in with ventifacts before.

Early in the missions, Curiosity's wheels suffered some wear and tear after rolling over them. But there are more of these ventifacts in the field Curiosity came across on March 18 than the rover has ever encountered. They're made from sandstone, the hardest rock found by the rover on Mars to date. 

"It was obvious from Curiosity's photos that this would not be good for our wheels," said Megan Lin, Curiosity Project Manager at JPL, in a statement. "It would be slow going, and we wouldn't have been able to implement rover-driving best practices."