Enjoy its beautiful view with the Curiosity spacecraft.
Although the persevering Mars spacecraft has been in the spotlight lately, we must not forget that there is another American rovers of Mars on the Red Planet. about curiosity. The Mars robot that has been researching on Mars for nearly ten years. And now this thief is making himself heard again. Because Curiosity took an amazingly beautiful photo.
More on Curiosity’s mission
Curiosity landed in Gale Crater in August 2012; A basin 154 km wide, formed by an ancient impact. The rover has revealed many secrets of this hole in recent years. For example, Curiosity has found strong indications that the crater was filled with water in the past. Mount Sharp is located in the heart of the crater. This mountain consists of sedimentary deposits and is in fact a time capsule: each layer tells something about a different period in the history of Mars. Curiosity is currently conducting a thorough investigation of this mountain. Hopefully, this will teach us a lot about the Red Planet’s past.
Each time after Curiosity travels a bit, it takes a picture of its surroundings. In mid-November, the mission team again ordered Curiosity to take some photos. However, the researchers were amazed by the images generated by the rover. To make it easier to send these images to Earth, Curiosity saves them in a low-quality compressed format. But when the rover team saw the view from Curiosity, the scenery was too beautiful to capture at the highest quality navigation cameras can.
Breathtaking shot
The resulting image consists of several black and white images taken at 8:30 a.m. and 10:15 p.m. MST. These two different periods of the day provided contrasting lighting conditions that revealed a variety of landscape details. These black and white photos can be seen below.
The Mars rover Curiosity used black-and-white navigation cameras to capture its view twice a day. In this image, the surrounding areas can be seen at 8:30 a.m. local Mars time. Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The Mars rover Curiosity used black-and-white navigation cameras to capture its view twice a day. In this image, the surrounding areas can be seen at 4:10 p.m. local Mars time. Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Then the researchers added blue, orange, and green colors. This resulted in the beautiful image below, with elements from the morning in blue, elements from the afternoon in orange and a mixture of both displayed in shades of green.
Stunning view of the Mars rover Curiosity. Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The image shows the beautiful view from the Curiosity spacecraft. In the center of the picture you can see the steep slope of Mount Sharp. The rover has been climbing this five-kilometer-high mountain since 2014. In the distance on the right you see the rolling hills. Curiosity took a look here last July. A large ‘sand field’ known as the ‘Furfi Sands’ extends 400 to 800 metres. At the far right of the image is the steep “Mount Rafael Navarro,” named after a Curiosity scientist who died earlier this year. Behind him is the top of Mount Sharp. This is slightly higher than the area Curiosity is currently exploring. The far edge of Gale Crater is about 2.3 kilometers long and can be seen on the horizon from about 30 to 40 kilometers away.
While we can enjoy the beautiful view of Curiosity for a while, the rover should move quickly again. Ultimately, the researchers hope the rover will provide more insights into how warm, humid (and possibly habitable) Mars could turn into a dry, cold (and possibly uninhabitable) planet.
