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NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has captured a new 360-degree panorama that reveals the diverse terrain of Mount Sharp, a crucial part of the planet that plays a vital role in helping scientists study the region and learn more about it. his history.
One of five rovers NASA sent to explore Mars, Curiosity returned regular photos, such as shimmering cloud formations in 2021 and selfies that include the massive 318 megapixel full-resolution (made up of 60 images) taken earlier this year, a tighter composition in 2014, and a panoramic selfie in 2013 taken in the Yellowknife Bay area of Mars Gale Crater.
This time around, the rover’s Mast Camera, or Mastcam, was used on July 3, 2021 to capture a full 360-degree panorama that overlooks Mount Sharp, which is a 5-mile-high mountain in the 960-mile basin. off Mar’s Gale Crater, reports Nasa. At the time of capture, Curiosity was somewhere between an area enriched with clay minerals and an area dominated by salty minerals called sulfates, which is an area of particular interest.
At the moment, it’s winter season at the rover’s location, which is why the panorama sky is mostly dust-free, revealing a clear view of Gale Crater. This capture also allowed the mission team to reflect on the 16 miles Curiosity has explored so far throughout the mission. The darkest areas of the landscape are Martian sand, made up of fragments of volcanic rock.
NASA is hoping that the mountain layers in this area could reveal how the ancient environment of Gale Crater has dried up over time, which would reveal more information about the area – which has been a major focus for a long time. term for the space mission – as similar changes are seen across the planet.
“The rocks here will begin to tell us how this once humid planet turned into today’s dry Mars, and how long habitable environments have persisted even after that,” said Abigail Fraeman, associate scientist for the Curiosity Project. , at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
Since landing on Mars on August 6, 2012, Curiosity’s mission has been to study and explore whether different environments at the site might have supported microbial life in the past when lakes and groundwater existed in the crater. Scabies. The rover uses its robotic arm drill to collect and evaluate rock samples that help study the area.
More information, and past images and videos captured by Curiosity, can be found on the NASA website.
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