Skip to main content

New panoramic Mars video puts you on the red planet before Elon Musk

NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover at Naukluft Plateau (360 View)
Mars has been in the news a lot just lately, and it’s fair to say it’s unlikely to be fading from the headlines anytime soon. Elon Musk has just said he wants to send a rocket there by 2018, China’s also
Recommended Videos
making plans to visit the red planet in the next few years, and some physicist guy recently said it may one day be possible to reach get from Earth in a mere 30 minutes – instead of around nine months.

Of course, the day humans step foot on its barren, dusty surface is still a ways off, though a new panoramic video from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab offers the next best experience if you’re at all curious about what it might be like to actually visit the fourth planet from the sun.

The imagery was shot earlier this month by the Mast Camera – aka Mastcam – on NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover, which has been puttering around the planet’s surface for the last four years.

“The view combines dozens of images taken during the mission’s 1,302nd sol, or Martian day, by Mastcam’s left-eye camera from a location on top of what rover team members call ‘Naukluft Plateau’ on lower Mount Sharp, which stands inside Gale Crater,” NASA explains.

The visible roughness of the terrain has been taking its toll on Curiosity rover, which has so far trundled across about eight miles of the Martian landscape.

“Holes and tears in the rover’s aluminum wheels became noticeable in 2013,” NASA said in a statement, adding that as a result it’s had to reroute the rover across more suitable ground.

There’s no cause for alarm, however, as the space agency says rover’s “cracks and punctures have been gradually accumulating at the pace we anticipated, based on testing we performed.”

So with slightly battered wheels, Curiosity is set to continue exploring other parts of Mount Sharp, which should bring Mars fans more 360-degree imagery such as the one above and this stunner, shot earlier in the year. Besides snapping some fancy photos, scientists are hoping Curiosity will help them gain a better understanding of “how long ancient environmental conditions remained favorable for microbial life, if it was ever present on Mars, before conditions became drier and less favorable.”

Most of the sky and rover hardware have been excluded from the final image as they were deemed irrelevant to this particular project, the space agency said. You can explore the scene by dragging the image around with a mouse, though for a better effect take a look at it using your smartphone or a VR headset.

Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
Immersive 360 video captures Mission Control celebrations of Mars landing
immersive 360 video captures nasa celebrations of mars landing perseverance mission control

Mission Control Celebration for NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover Landing (360 Video)

NASA successfully landed its Perseverance rover on Mars last week after a six-and-a-half-month journey from Earth.

Read more
Mars helicopter Ingenuity checks in from the red planet
Mars helicopter

With NASA's textbook landing of the rover Perseverance on Mars this week, the public's attention has been captured by a very special companion tucked inside the aeroshell along with the rover: The helicopter Ingenuity. This tiny four-blade craft will be the first aircraft to fly on another planet, in a technology demonstration that could change the way we explore Mars and beyond.

Now, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has shared the first update from Ingenuity as it has checked in from the red planet. The signal came from the rover's location in the Jezero Crater and was received by JPL in California at 3:30 p.m. PST (6:30 p.m. EST) on Friday, February 19, having been relayed by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Read more
Mars has a new explorer: NASA’s Perseverance rover lands on the red planet
Perseverance illustration

In an incredible feat of engineering, NASA has once again landed a rover on the surface of Mars. The Perseverance rover touched down safely today, Thursday, February 18, after a picture-perfect landing sequence.

The rover has spent the last seven months traveling to Mars after being launched in July last year. Having traveled through space, it began its descent sequence by jettisoning its cruise stage. That left just the aeroshell which protects the rover as it moves through the atmosphere.

Read more