NASA rover just captured most detailed picture of Martian surface
Even though Earth and Mars are two very distant worlds, Earthlings are doing some incredible stuff on the neighboring planet. We found evidence of ancient lakes on the Red Planet years ago, and now, Curiosity, the rover operated by American space agency NASA, has captured the most detailed panorama of the Martian surface ever seen. Let's take a look at it.
Epic Martian panorama snapped by Curiosity
NASA's Curiosity is already known for capturing and sending some super cool selfies from the Red Planet, but this time around, it has taken a truly epic image. In late 2019, the car-like rover spent a week photographing the Martian surface and ended up taking a whopping 1,000 shots. Those images were later assembled by NASA to create an insanely detailed panorama.
Image with 1.8 billion pixels and a lot to see
The panorama created with Curiosity's photographs packs a whopping 1.8 billion pixels, making the highest-resolution image yet of the Martian surface. Specifically, it shows the Glen Torridon area of Mars in the Gale Crater, in a way you may have never seen before. You can zoom in to see the rim of the crater, a smaller impact crater, and the rover's wheel tracks.
NASA also produced a second panorama
NASA also created a second panorama using Curiosity's photography skills. However, this one only had 650 million pixels and had more of the rover than the Martian surface. Both shots are available for download.
How the rover took these images?
In order to bring these stunning Martian images to life, NASA deployed Curiosity's Mast Camera or MastCam. The agency took a number of photographs using the telephoto lens of the camera, but it wasn't that simple. They had to schedule the photo session at the same time every day to make sure that the lighting remains consistent in the final panorama.
Curiosity has been exploring Mars since 2012
Curiosity rover landed on Mars in August 2012 and has since been exploring the Gale Crater of the planet. The rover is way past its planned mission life but is still continuing to roam around Mars, even with damaged wheels. It moves very slowly and has just been able to cover/analyze a distance of around 21km so far.
