NASA’s Curiosity rover captures stunning image of Mars landscape

NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover has captured a stunning new mosaic that reveals the dramatic, colorful hues of morning and afternoon light on the surface of Mars.

The robotic explorer used its black-and-white navigation cameras to take panoramic photos of the Marker Band Valley on April 8 before leaving the site. One panorama was taken at 9:20 am, while the other was taken at 3:40 pm, both local time on Mars.

The black and white panoramas captured how different the landscape looks at two different times of day, and the color was added in post-processing by a team at NASA. Blue light means morning, while yellow light means afternoon.

The picture is similar to another postcard taken by Curiosity in November 2021 .

“Anyone who has been to a national park knows that the scene looks different in the morning than it does in the afternoon,” said Curiosity engineer Doug Ellison of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., in a statement. “Capturing two hours of the day provides dark shadows because the lighting comes from left and right, like you might have on a stage – but instead of stage lights, we’re relying on the sun.”

Ellison, who serves as the Mars Exploration team leader on the rover’s cameras, came up with the plan for Curiosity to take the panoramas and process the images to create the new mosaic.

Curiosity has been exploring the foothills of the 5km-high Mount Sharp, in the center of Gale Crater, since it landed in 2012. In the image, Marker Band Valley can be seen beyond the rover’s tracks, where the rover unexpectedly discovered evidence of an ancient lake .

The shadows are more pronounced in the image because the panoramas were taken during the winter at Gale Crater, when airborne dust is closest to the surface.

“Mars’ shadows are sharper and deeper when there’s little dust and softer when there’s a lot of dust,” Ellison said.