NASA’s Opportunity Rover took one final stunning 360 degree panorama of Mars

NASA’s Opportunity Rover took one last stunning image of Mars’s landscape, before losing touch with it after 15 years last month.

The incredible 360-degree panorama shows what would been Opportunity’s final resting spot in Perseverance Valley.

It gives a view of the rim of the Endeavour Crater in the distance, rover tracks from Opportunity, and to the far right and left is the bottom of Perseverance Valley. 

The space agency lost contact with Opportunity after its years exploring the surface of the planet, laying the groundwork for future missions.

A dust storm blanketed its location in June last year. After several attempts to restore contact from Earth, they received the final communication from Opportunity on the June 10th.  

It sent back a stunning 360-degree panorama of the red planet. The panorama is made up of 354 individual images, which Opportunity snapped from May 13th to June 10th.

John Callas, Opportunity Project Manager, said: ‘This final panorama embodies what made our Opportunity rover such a remarkable mission of exploration and discovery. 

‘To the right of centre you can see the rim of Endeavor Crater rising in the distance.

‘Just to the left of that, rover tracks begin their descent from over the horizon and weave their way down to geologic features that our scientists wanted to examine up close.

‘And to the far right and left are the bottom of Perseverance Valley and the floor of Endeavour crater, pristine and unexplored, waiting for visits from future explorers.’

The incredible 360-degree panorama shows what would been Opportunity’s final resting spot in Perseverance Valley. The space agency lost contact with Opportunity after its years exploring the surface of the planet, laying the groundwork for future missions

The solar-powered Opportunity Rover’s trail blazing mission was lauded as one of the most successful and enduring feats of interplanetary exploration.

‘It is because of trailblazing missions such as Opportunity that there will come a day when our brave astronauts walk on the surface of Mars,’ NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said last month.

‘And when that day arrives, some portion of that first footprint will be owned by the men and women of Opportunity, and a little rover that defied the odds and did so much in the name of exploration.’ 

Its scientific discoveries contributed to an advanced understanding of the planet’s geology and environment, setting foundations for future robotic and human missions to the harsh environment of Mars. 

The agency made one final attempt to contact Opportunity Rover (pictured) eight months after the spacecraft last made contact. A giant dust storm blocked sunlight from Mars in 2018, stopping Opportunity’s solar-powered batteries from being able to recharge

The filters admit light centered on wavelengths of 753 nanometers (near-infrared), 535 nanometers (green) and 432 nanometers (violet).

A few frames remain black and white, as the rover did not have the time to record those locations using the green and violet filters before the dust storm.

After eight months of effort and sending more than a thousand commands in an attempt to restore contact with the rover, NASA declared Opportunity’s mission complete on February 13th, 2019. 

However, NASA’s Mars exploration perseveres with the InSight lander, which touched down in November, now just beginning its scientific investigations and the Curiosity rover, which has been exploring Gale Crater for more than six years.

The upcoming 2020 rover mission will for the first time seek signs of past microbial life on the planet, together with the European Space Agency’s ExoMars rover.