National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Curiosity Mars Rover has provided a 360 panoramic view of its valley. The panorama image was shared by NASA's YouTube page Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
The 360-degree view was captured at the Gediz Vallis channel that formed billions of years ago.
According to NASA, “Gediz Vallis channel was one of the last features to form on the three-mile-tall (5-kilometer-tall) Mount Sharp, the base of which Curiosity has been ascending since 2014. The channel is filled with piles of boulders and other debris that may have been brought here by debris flows (rapid, wet landslides) or dry avalanches.”
Unveiling the 360-degree view of Mars, the official X Page of Mars Curiosity Rover shared a post on X and wrote, “This 360-degree panorama is Gediz Vallis channel, a feature that appears – from space, at least – to have been carved by an ancient river. If so, it could revise the timeline for when water flowed on this part of Mars.”
The view was recorded on February 1 - “the 4,084th Martian day, or sol, of the mission" and using the "left black-and-white navigation camera mounted on its mast, or ‘head'”, NASA said.
The 360-degree view was created by stitching together ten images sent back to Earth.
NASA wrote, “Curiosity captured this vista using the left black-and-white navigation camera mounted on its mast, or “head,” on Feb. 1, 2024, the 4,084th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. The panorama is made up of 10 images that were stitched together after being sent back to Earth.”
Take a look at Mars' panoramic view here:
Earlier this month, 10 Americans officially became astronauts and will now be eligible for planned NASA missions to the International Space Station.
“You are here because you are exceptional. We ask you to sit on the pointy end of a rocket and risk your life to advance our nation's goal to explore the unknown,” said NASA associate administrator Jim Free.
