See NASA Rover's Epic Mars Panorama — As It's Snapped From Orbit
Above is a sample of a spectacular new panoramic image created using images sent back from Mars by NASA's Curiosity rover.
The rover — on its 4,447th Martian day (called a sol) when it took the image — landed in 2012 in Gale Crater near the planet's equator. That crater was formed by an ancient asteroid impact and is about 93 miles (150 kilometers) in diameter.
For the last few years, Curiosity has been traveling slowly up Mount Sharp, within the crater. It's about three miles (five kilometers) high and comprises many different geological layers — which is why Curiosity is there. From Mount Sharp, it can see a lot of Gale Crater, with what looks like mountains in the background of its panorama, below, actually the rim of the vast crater.
NASA's Curiosity Mars rover captured this view looking back down at the floor of Gale Crater from ... More its location on Mount Sharp on Feb. 7, 2025, the 4,447th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. Curiosity was continuing its climb through a region of the mountain called the sulfate-bearing unit.
The image was captured on Feb. 7, 2025, using the telephoto lens on the rover's Mast Camera. It can be downloaded in 19,506x3,191 pixel (62 megapixels) quality from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which built and now remotely operates the rover from 203 million miles (326 million kilometers) away.
The image took so long to return to Earth because Curiosity can only send data at a speed of 32 kbit/s, which is extremely slow compared to typical broadband speeds.
NASA's Curiosity rover appears as a dark speck in this contrast-enhanced view captured on Feb. 28, ... More 2025, by the HiRISE camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Trailing Curiosity are the rover's tracks, which can linger on the Martian surface for months before being erased by the wind.
Exactly three weeks after Curisoity's exquisite panorama of Gale Crater, the robot itself was imaged by another robot flying above. Captured on Feb. 28 by the HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter — which has been circling the red planet since 2006 — Curiosity appears as a dark speck, its tracks obvious behind it. They're expected to dissipate within a few months as the famously strong Martian wind takes hold. Curiosity moves at a top speed of 0.1 mph (0.16 kph). 'By comparing the time HiRISE took the image to the rover's commands for the day, we can see it was nearly done with a 69-foot drive,' said Doug Ellison, Curiosity's planning team chief at JPL.
During its tenure on Mars, Curiosity has detected methane in the atmosphere, complex organic molecules, finger-like rocks and even an 'alien doorway.' The rover was launched from Cape Canaveral on Nov. 26, 2011, and landed inside Gale Crater on Mars on Aug. 6, 2012.
A self-portrait of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows the robot at a drilled sample site called ... More "Duluth" on the lower slopes of Mount Sharp in Mars on June 20, 2018. (Photo by NASA/JPL-CALTECH/MSSS / HANDOUT/)
The same week these two spectacular images emerged, so did a study that suggested that heavy rain once fell on Mars. The new study from geologists at the University of Colorado Boulder portrays Mars as relatively warm and wet billions of years ago, with rain feeding valleys and channels that shaped the Martian surface. 'You could pull up Google Earth images of places like Utah, zoom out, and you'd see the similarities to Mars,' said research lead Amanda Steckel at the California Institute of Technology. Some water probably existed on Mars during about 4.1 to 3.7 billion years ago.
'Once the erosion from flowing water stopped, Mars almost got frozen in time and probably still looks a lot like Earth did 3.5 billion years ago,' said senior author Brian Hynek at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Trump administration says it won't publish major climate change report on NASA website as promised
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration on Monday took another step to make it harder to find major, legally mandated scientific assessments of how climate change is endangering the nation and its people. Earlier this month, the official government websites that hosted the authoritative, peer-reviewed national climate assessments went dark. Such sites tell state and local governments and the public what to expect in their backyards from a warming world and how best to adapt to it. At the time, the White House said NASA would house the reports to comply with a 1990 law that requires the reports, which the space agency said it planned to do. But on Monday, NASA announced that it aborted those plans. 'The USGCRP (the government agency that oversees and used to host the report) met its statutory requirements by presenting its reports to Congress. NASA has no legal obligations to host data," NASA Press Secretary Bethany Stevens said in an email. That means no data from the assessment or the government science office that coordinated the work will be on NASA, she said. On July 3, NASA put out a statement that said: "All preexisting reports will be hosted on the NASA website, ensuring continuity of reporting.' 'This document was written for the American people, paid for by the taxpayers, and it contains vital information we need to keep ourselves safe in a changing climate, as the disasters that continue to mount demonstrate so tragically and clearly,' said Texas Tech climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe. She is chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy and co-author of several past national climate assessments. Copies of past reports are still squirreled away in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's library and the latest report and its interactive atlas can be seen here. Former Obama White House science adviser and climate scientist John Holdren accused the administration of outright lying and long intended to censor or bury the reports. 'The new stance is classic Trump administration misdirection,' Holdren said. 'In this instance, the administration offers a modest consolation to quell initial outrage over the closure of the site and the disappearance of the National Climate Assessments. Then, two weeks later, they snatch away the consolation with no apology.' 'They simply don't want the public to see the meticulously assembled and scientifically validated information about what climate change is already doing to our farms, forests, and fisheries, as well as to storms, floods, wildfires, and coast property — and about how all those damages will grow in the absence of concerted remedial action,' Holdren said in an email. That's why it's important that state and local governments and every day people see these reports, Holdren said. He said they are written in a way that is 'useful to people who need to understand what climate change is doing and will do to THEM, their loved ones, their property and their environment." 'Trump doesn't want people to know,' Holdren wrote. The most recent report, issued in 2023, found that climate change is affecting people's security, health and livelihoods in every corner of the country in different ways, with minority communities, particularly Native Americans, often disproportionately at risk. ___ The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at
Washington Post
2 hours ago
- Washington Post
Trump administration says it won't publish major climate change report on NASA website as promised
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Monday took another step to make it harder to find major, legally mandated scientific assessments of how climate change is endangering the nation and its people. Earlier this month, the official government websites that hosted the authoritative, peer-reviewed national climate assessments went dark. Such sites tell state and local governments and the public what to expect in their backyards from a warming world and how best to adapt to it. At the time, the White House said NASA would house the reports to comply with a 1990 law that requires the reports , which the space agency said it planned to do.
Associated Press
2 hours ago
- Associated Press
Trump administration says it won't publish major climate change report on NASA website as promised
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration on Monday took another step to make it harder to find major, legally mandated scientific assessments of how climate change is endangering the nation and its people. Earlier this month, the official government websites that hosted the authoritative, peer-reviewed national climate assessments went dark. Such sites tell state and local governments and the public what to expect in their backyards from a warming world and how best to adapt to it. At the time, the White House said NASA would house the reports to comply with a 1990 law that requires the reports, which the space agency said it planned to do. But on Monday, NASA announced that it aborted those plans. 'The USGCRP (the government agency that oversees and used to host the report) met its statutory requirements by presenting its reports to Congress. NASA has no legal obligations to host data,' NASA Press Secretary Bethany Stevens said in an email. That means no data from the assessment or the government science office that coordinated the work will be on NASA, she said. On July 3, NASA put out a statement that said: 'All preexisting reports will be hosted on the NASA website, ensuring continuity of reporting.' 'This document was written for the American people, paid for by the taxpayers, and it contains vital information we need to keep ourselves safe in a changing climate, as the disasters that continue to mount demonstrate so tragically and clearly,' said Texas Tech climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe. She is chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy and co-author of several past national climate assessments. Copies of past reports are still squirreled away in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's library and the latest report and its interactive atlas can be seen here. Former Obama White House science adviser and climate scientist John Holdren accused the administration of outright lying and long intended to censor or bury the reports. 'The new stance is classic Trump administration misdirection,' Holdren said. 'In this instance, the administration offers a modest consolation to quell initial outrage over the closure of the site and the disappearance of the National Climate Assessments. Then, two weeks later, they snatch away the consolation with no apology.' 'They simply don't want the public to see the meticulously assembled and scientifically validated information about what climate change is already doing to our farms, forests, and fisheries, as well as to storms, floods, wildfires, and coast property — and about how all those damages will grow in the absence of concerted remedial action,' Holdren said in an email. That's why it's important that state and local governments and every day people see these reports, Holdren said. He said they are written in a way that is 'useful to people who need to understand what climate change is doing and will do to THEM, their loved ones, their property and their environment.' 'Trump doesn't want people to know,' Holdren wrote. The most recent report, issued in 2023, found that climate change is affecting people's security, health and livelihoods in every corner of the country in different ways, with minority communities, particularly Native Americans, often disproportionately at risk. ___ The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at
