Scottish "Site" in the new Nasa Martian panorama

NASA has released a new image of Mars that includes a site named Stoer in Assynt in the northwestern Highlands.

The 360-degree panorama was created with the help of photographs taken by Curiosity, a robot exploring the red planet.

This is the ridge of Vera Rubin and includes a sky clouded by a dust storm on a global scale.

In the foreground is the Stoer "drill target", named after an area of ​​Assynt with rock formations of interest to geologists and other scientists.

Stoer is in the North West Highland Geopark. The park contains some of the oldest rocks that can be found in Europe.

NASA has stated that "significant discoveries" about the early years of life on Earth have been made in the sediments of the lake bed at Stoer.

"Mechanical problem"

The US Space Agency used an exercise on Curiosity to collect rock samples at the location on Mars.

NASA said: "The new drill sample delighted Curiosity's science team as the last two attempts to drill the rover were thwarted by rocks of unexpected hardness.

Curiosity began using a new drilling method earlier this year to work around a mechanical problem.

"The test showed that it was as effective at drilling rocks as the old method, suggesting that hard rocks would have been a problem no matter what method was used."

There are many places on Mars that bear place names in Scotland, often because of the important geology of Scottish sites.

Among the place names on the red planet are Glenelg, St Kilda, Torridon, Siccar Point, Muck, Wick, Sandwick and Holyrood.