NASA’s Curiosity rover has shared a stunning panorama of its home.
Composed of more than 1,000 images of Mars’ landscape taken during the 2019 Thanksgiving holiday, the contains 1.8 billion pixels – deeming it the highest-resolution picture of the Martian planet yet.
The rover used its Mast Camera to capture the photos of the Red Planet to produce the high-resolution panorama and relied on its medium-angle lens to for a lower-resolution -nearly 650-million-pixel panorama that includes the rover’s deck and robotic arm.
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NASA’s Curiosity rover has shared a stunning panorama of its home. Composed of more than 1,000 images of Mars’ landscape taken during the 2019 Thanksgiving holiday, the contains 1.8 billion pixels – deeming it the highest-resolution picture of the Martian planet yet
Both panoramas showcase ‘Glen Torridon,’ a region on the side of Mount Sharp that Curiosity is exploring.
The images were snapped between November 24 and December 1, but before NASA staff left for the holiday, the programmed the rover with certain tasks such as what angles of the planet to capture and to ensure the pictures were in focus.
Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity’s project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which leads the Curiosity rover mission, said: ‘While many on our team were at home enjoying turkey, Curiosity produced this feast for the eyes.’
‘This is the first time during the mission we’ve dedicated our operations to a stereo 360-degree panorama.’
The rover used its Mast Camera to capture the photos of the Red Planet to produce the high-resolution panorama and relied on its medium-angle lens to for a lower-resolution -nearly 650-million-pixel panorama that includes the rover’s deck and robotic arm
Both panoramas showcase ‘Glen Torridon,’ a region on the side of Mount Sharp that Curiosity is exploring. The images were snapped between November 24 and December 1, but before NASA staff left for the holiday, the programmed the rover with certain tasks such as what angles of the planet to capture and to ensure the pictures were in focus
Curiosity would snap images every day be noon and 2 p.m. local time so the lighting would be consistent in every shot.
Glen Torridon is littered with clay mineral deposits that Curosity has been investigating.
This area is located in the Gale Crater, which is a massive, ancient dry lake bed with a 16,404-foot mountain at its center.
In December, NASA released a separate panorama of Mars, showing the final resting place of its Opportunity rover.
Curiosity relied on its medium-angle lens to for a lower-resolution -nearly 650-million-pixel panorama that includes the rover’s deck and robotic arm (pictured)
The high-resolution panorama even capture the intricate tire marks of the rover
The image is a series of 354 individual pictures snapped by the rover over a 29-day period before it shutdown completely and declared ‘dead’ by the American space agency earlier this year.
The desolate Martian landscape known as Perseverance Valley was the last thing the rover saw and now serves as its graveyard.
The panorama is composed of 354 individual images provided by the rover’s Panoramic Camera (Pancam) from May 13 through June 10, or sols (Martian days) 5,084 through 5,111.
The panorama combines images from three different Pancam filters, which admit light centered on wavelengths of 753 nanometers (near-infrared), 535 nanometers (green) and 432 nanometers (violet).
In December, NASA released a separate panorama of Mars, showing the final resting place of its Opportunity rover (pictured)
Opportunity project manager John Callas of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said: ‘This final panorama embodies what made our Opportunity rover such a remarkable mission of exploration and discovery.’
‘To the right of center 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 desolate Martian landscape known as Perseverance Valley was the last thing the rover saw and now serves as its graveyard. The panorama is composed of 354 individual images provided by the rover’s Panoramic Camera (Pancam) from May 13 through June 10, or sols (Martian days) 5,084 through 5,111
NASA explained that Opportunity was not expected to last 15 years, but noted it had contributed greatly to their understanding of the planet’s geology and environment, ‘laying groundwork for future robotic and human missions on the Red Planet’, the American space agency said in a statement
NASA explained that Opportunity was not expected to last 15 years, but noted it had contributed greatly to their understanding of the planet’s geology and environment, ‘laying groundwork for future robotic and human missions on the Red Planet’, the American space agency said in a statement.
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 Feb. 13, 2019.
With the death of the Opportunity rover also comes the end of NASA’s Mars Exploration Rovers program, which launched from Cape Canaveral in July 2003 with the twin robots, Spirit and Opportunity.
Spirit met its end back in 2011, a year after getting stuck in the sand and losing contact with Earth.
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 Feb. 13, 2019
Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, said during the press conference in February: ‘I’m standing here with a sense of deep appreciation and gratitude, as I declare the Opportunity mission complete – and with it the Mars exploration mission as compete.’
‘I will never forget the amazing work that happened here, it transformed our understanding of the red planet.’
The Mars rover, affectionately known as ‘Oppy,’ far surpassed the expectations of the team that’s operated it for so long.
The panorama shows a detailed view of the Perseverance Valley including the rover’s tracks left behind as it traveled through the desolate landscape
It was designed to last just 90 Martian days (90 sols), during which it would travel a total of 1,000 meters (1100 yards).
But somehow, Oppy survived 14-and-a-half years after touching down on the red planet, pushing its limits to travel almost 30 miles to reshape our understanding of Mars.
It withstood years of extreme temperatures and radiation, but finally met its match this past spring, when a planet-wide dust storm encircled Mars and blotted out the sun.
This proved to be a fatal blow for Opportunity, as the rover relies entirely on solar energy to power its instruments.
More than 1,000 recovery commands were sent over the course of eight months in a bid to revive the robotic geologist.
NASA 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