This is a small part of a large megamosaic captured by NASA’s Curiosity rover in 2020.
NASA / JPL-Caltech / LANL / CNES / CNRS / IRAP / IAS / LPG
You still can’t visit Mars in person, but NASA can help you feel like you’re there. The Curiosity rover captured an epic megamosaic of distant features, which highlights the sandy and rocky Martian landscape.
The rover team collected images for the massive mosaic during an extended stay at the “Mary Anning” drilling site in Gale Crater in early 2020. Curiosity took the opportunity to make an in-depth study of the area, which included the realization of three holes and capturing an amazing selfie.
Over the course of two months, Curiosity collected “the largest mosaic to date with ChemCam’s Remote Micro-Imager (RMI).” RMI is a camera designed for extreme close-ups, but these imaging talents can also be used to capture telescopic views of distant formations.
It took 216 images to make the megamosaic, which can be experimented with in video form. Views include an area of Mount Sharp, the massive central mountain of Gale Crater where Curiosity explores, and a place called Vera Rubin Ridge.
Look at this:
The NASA Curiosity rover delivers the megamosaic Mars of the Mountain …
2:54
The video shows the visual highlights along the way, including a dune field, the wall of Gale Crater and a dark layer of Mount Sharp.
“When sewn together, RMI mosaics reveal landscape details a few kilometers from the rover and provide images that are highly complementary to orbital observations, providing a more humane, ground-based perspective,” wrote Curiosity team member Stephane Le Mouelic, a specialist in remote sensing at the University of Nantes in France, in an update of the mission Curiosity Monday.
The megamosaic is a reminder of how Mars may look familiar and feel alien at the same time. He gives us an excuse to take a break from Earth for a lovely few minutes.