Watch: NASA’s Curiosity rover sends immersive landscape’s video of Mars |

At first look, this panoramic view would possibly resemble a sunlit desert within the American Southwest, with quiet ridges, earthy tones, and distant peaks. But look nearer: you are really seeing Mars. Captured by NASA’s Curiosity rover from the slopes of the three-mile-high Mount Sharp inside Gale Crater, this surreal panorama is a component of a shocking 30-second video displaying what the Red Planet appears like up shut. What looks as if mountain ranges is definitely the rim of an historic crater, created billions of years in the past by a large asteroid impression. It’s the following neatest thing to climbing Mars with out a spacesuit.

NASA shares Earth like visuals from Mars

The panoramic video was captured earlier this yr whereas Curiosity explored a area generally known as the sulfate-bearing unit. Rich in salty minerals probably left behind by evaporating streams and ponds, the terrain supplies a window into Mars’ previous, when water was extra considerable and the local weather was extra Earth-like. These options assist scientists perceive how Mars remodeled from a probably liveable world right into a frozen desert.

NASA’s Curiosity Rover’s observe document

Curiosity, which launched in 2011 and landed in 2012, has traveled over 352 million miles. That consists of about 20 miles rumbling over Martian soil. Last yr, its wheels uncovered a shock: pure elemental sulfur, a substance that on Earth is commonly linked to volcanic exercise and even microbial life. This surprising discovery continues to gasoline scientific curiosity concerning the planet’s potential to have as soon as supported life.

Curiosity’s subsequent cease to ‘Boxwork’

Curiosity’s subsequent cease is a wierd terrain referred to as “boxwork,” the place mineral ridges type web-like patterns throughout the bottom. Scientists assume this area fashioned when the final trickles of Martian water deposited minerals in rock cracks. These formations could maintain clues concerning the planet’s final liveable phases and presumably about historic microbial life.

More than only a drive

Although Curiosity just isn’t anticipated to succeed in the boxwork till late fall, the rover’s crew continues to pause and research the fascinating geology alongside the way in which. As planetary geologist Catherine O’Connell-Cooper places it, “We’re not just speeding past the cool things.” Each cease affords new scientific insights and spectacular views from 140 million miles away.