NASA’s Curiosity rover has sent back a stunning 360° video from the surface of Mars showing the incredible view from atop the Vera Rubin Ridge.
The video was created from a variety of still images stitched together to form a panorama on December 19 of last year.
NASA has just released the footage online and it shows images of Curiosity’s next destination, the floor of Gale Crater.
NASA’s Curiosity rover has sent back a stunning 360° video from the surface of Mars showing the incredible view from atop the Vera Rubin Ridge. The video was created from a variety of still images stitched together to form a panorama on December 19 of last year (pictured)
Curiosity’s most recent drilling site, dubbed the Rock Hall Drill Hole, can be seen as well as the previous Highfield drill site, and the Gale Crater Rim and Floor.
It also shows Upper Mount Sharp in the distance and the area where Curiosity will be moving to study next, called Glen Toridon, a ‘clay-bearing’ region.
The term ‘clay-bearing’ means data from orbiters shows that rocks there contain clay minerals which form in water.
Curiosity’s journey and analysis of the Vera Rubin Ridge could help NASA to piece together the story of its formation.
Abigail Fraeman, who has been working on the project, said: ‘We’ve had our fair share of surprises. We’re leaving with a different perspective of the ridge than what we had before.’
Equipment on-board the rover found traces of hematite, a mineral rich in iron and often found in places where water is found.
NASA’s Curiosity rover has recently been scaling Mount Sharp, and three-mile-high mountain in the Gale Crater. It’s instruments have detected that the mountain is less dense than originally thought, throwing up more questions about how it was formed
Ms Fraeman said: ‘The whole traverse is helping us understand all the factors that influence how our orbiters see Mars.
‘Looking up close with a rover allowed us to find a lot more of these hematite signatures. It shows how orbiter and rover science complement one another.’
The rover is now scheduled to leave the ridge behind and study the Glen Torrid – a region that is known to contain clay minerals.
Ashen Vasavada, who also works on the project, said: ‘In addition to indicating a previously wet environment, clay minerals are known to trap and preserve organic molecules.
‘That makes this area especially promising, and the team is already surveying the area for its next drill site.’
NASA released a similar image almost exactly a year ago showing the top of the Vera Rubin Ridge.
It revealed the landscape of one of our closest galactic neighbours, which has been home to the exploratory vehicle since it landed in Gale Crater in 2012.
One of the on-board cameras captured 16 separate scenic images which were then stitched together to form the sweeping image.
Nasa released an annotated version of another panoramic photo last year that shows notable places from the mission, such as ‘Murray Buttes’ and the Peace Vallis Channel. The entire route of the rover so far was seen and mapped for the first time (pictured)
This close-up it shows the original landing site from 2012, Bradbury Landing, where Curiosity touched down more than 2,000 days ago. It also shows Yellowknife Bay, the place where the rover found an ancient freshwater-lake environment that would have offered all of the basic chemical ingredients for microbial life
Thanks to some clever visual effects that give the scene a blue hue, rather than the distinctive rusty red normally associated with Mars, the vista takes on a strangely familiar appearance to earthling eyes.
Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, released the panorama, which gives an overview of the rover’s path along the crater’s outer edge, although the photos themselves were all taken on October 25, 2017, by Curiosity’s Mast Camera, or Mastcam.
At an elevation of 327 metres (1,073 feet) the image looks over the crater, which is about 3.5 to 3.8 billion years old and covers an area 96 miles (154 kilometres) in diameter – about the same size as Rhode Island and Connecticut combined.
Most of the scene’s horizon is the crater’s northern rim, around 1.2 miles (two kilometres) above the rover.
Due to the incredibly thin atmosphere of the planet, a mountain that is more than 50 miles (80 km) away can be seen in the background of the stunning shot.
As well as stitching the photos together to create a seamless shot, Nasa also adjusted its white-balance so that the colour of the rock strewn inclines and flat surface of the crater’s interior appear as they would under daylight conditions on Earth.
The Mars Curiosity rover was initially launched from Cape Canaveral, an American Air Force station in Florida, on November 26, 2011.
After embarking on a 350 million mile (560 million km) journey, the rover touched down only 1.5 miles (2.4 km) away from the earmarked landing spot.
After a successful landing on August 6, 2012, the rover has since travelled more than 11 miles (18 km).