At 14:22:08 UTC the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) took this close-up detail of the top of the track “dug” with one of the wheels of the rover that I showed you a few days ago (see https://www.facebook.com/PianetaMarte.MdM/photos/a.1625578140858706/2466149086801603/).
The photo was taken from a distance of only 5.91 cm with a definition of 0.028 mm/pixel, thus covering an area of 4.5 cm X 3.34 cm.
Despite a rather fine grain size, I’d say between a tenth and a thirtieth of a millimeter, the appearance is decidedly more like a wet, sandy loam than a pile of dry, dusty sand.
In fact, the single grains tend to stick together forming agglomerates of an average size of one millimeter.
To show colors more similar to what the human eye would see, I subjected the image to white balance and a slight increase in microcontrast and color saturation.
Original image: https://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/raw_images/678168/ https://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/msss/02558/mhli/2558MH0007400010903507C00_DXXX.jpg
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