Rover Curiosity took massive 318-megapixel selfie on Mars

While NASA’s Mars Perseverance Rover has been making headlines lately, its Curiosity rover has been on the Red Planet since 2012 and has just returned a gigantic 318-megapixel selfie that depicts it in front of Mont Mercou, a rock flush with the surface of Mars.

NASA says that to create this final image, the rover had to use two different cameras.

“The panorama is made up of 60 images taken by the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on the rover’s robotic arm on March 26, 2021, the 3070th Martian, or ground, day of the mission. These were combined with 11 images taken by the Mastcam on the mast, or “head” of the rover on March 16, 2021, the 3060th Martian day of the mission, “says NASA.

You can download the huge 105.2MB full-resolution image here.

There’s a small hole in the ground just to the left of the rover in the image above, and it’s where he used a robotic drill to extract a sample. This particular rock sample is nicknamed “Nontron” because the Curiosity team nicknames the features of this part of Mars using names from the region around the village of Nontron in southwestern France.

The Curiosity Rover has been returning selfies for almost a decade. In 2013, the Curiosity rover returned a stunning self-portrait showing both the surface under the rover and the dusty sky. The following year, the rover celebrated its first anniversary with another selfie taken from a closer point of view.

As indicated by DIY photography, the Curiosity Rover also recently returned a few other panoramic images of its location, including a three-dimensional stereoscopic photo. The rover used its Mastcam instrument to take the 32 individual images that make up this panorama of the Mont Mercou outcrop and combined it with a second panorama it captured from 13 feet aside.

The gif below illustrates the three-dimensional effect:

“Both panoramas were taken on March 4, 2021, the 3049th Martian, or ground, day of the mission, at a distance of about 40 meters from the cliff, which is about 6 meters high. Writes NASA. “They have been balanced in white so that the colors of the rocky materials look like they might have appeared in daylight conditions on Earth.”

Image credits: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS