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NASA's Curiosity rover has bravely crossed the Gale Crater region of Mars since August 2012. The space agency has now spotted the solitary robot in orbit within a "dramatic Martian landscape" nicknamed Woodland Bay. Curiosity climbs slowly over Mount Sharp – a three-mile (five-mile) peak inside Gale Crater. This part of the red planet is incredibly important to NASA as it could uncover clues to Mars' liquid past.
NASA said: "You can see a dramatic Martian landscape in a new image taken from space, showing NASA's Curiosity robot exhuming a place called" Woodland Bay. "
"This is one of the many stops the rover made in an area called an" open-air unit "on the side of Mount Sharp, a three-mile (five-kilometer) mountain located inside the crater. Scabies.
"This image was taken on May 31, 2019 by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) spacecraft."
On the beautiful NASA photo, the Curiosity rover is nothing more than a grain of blue against the dusty sand of Mars.
READ MORE: Rover Opportunity: What were the last heartbreaking words of the Mars rover?
Gale Crater was chosen as the landing point for Curiosity because of its fascinating history and geography.
At the center of the crater is Mount Sharp, surrounded by compact layers of various minerals.
Orbital scans of the crater revealed mounds of clay soil among layers of minerals rich in sulfur and oxygen.
If there is a place where life may have already existed on Mars, it could be in the old dry lake of Gale Crater.
READ MORE: NASA shares the last tragic photo taken by the latest robot Opportunity Mars
NASA said: "Vera Rubin Ridge cuts the scene north of the rover, while a dark spot of sand lies to the northeast.
"Look closely at the embedded image and you will be able to distinguish what is probably the" head "of Curiosity, technically known as the remote sensing mast.
"A bright spot appears in the upper left corner of the mobile.
"At the time of acquiring this image, the rover was facing 65 degrees in a counter-clockwise direction, which allowed the mast to be placed at about the right place to produce the bright spot."
READ MORE: Touching tributes bid farewell to rover Opportunity after 15 years of mission
The NASA Curiosity mobile is comparable in size to a small SUV-type car, but it's more than just a vehicle: it's a mobile wheeled lab.
The wheels of the rover measure 50.8 cm (20 inches), which makes them much larger than the previous rovers of NASA: Spirit, Opportunity and Sojourner.
However, on an average day, the mobile only covers about 201 meters (660 feet).
NASA said: "Curiosity has brought 17 cameras with it to the red planet – more than any other rover."
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