NASA releases an image taken last April by Curiosity
June 15, 2023 . Updated at 11:57 a.m.
the scout vehicle curiosity NASA has captured a panoramic postcard of the Marker Band Valley on Mars before leaving it behind. The image, released this Thursday by the space agency, is an artistic interpretation of the landscape, with color added to two black and white panoramas immortalized by the rover’s navigation cameras.
views were taken on April 8 at 9:20 a.m. and 3:40 p.m., local Mars time, providing dramatically different lighting that, when combined, makes the details in the scene stand out. Blue was added to parts of the postcard captured in the morning and yellow to parts taken in the afternoon, just as was done for another similar postcard taken by Curiosity in November 2021.
The resulting image is striking. curiosity it’s found on the slopes of Mount Sharpfive kilometers up inside Gale Crater, where he has been exploring since he landed in 2012. In the distance, beyond his tracks, is the Marker Band Valley, a winding area of ”sulphate region”, within of which the vehicle discovered unexpected signs of an ancient lake. Below—in the center and just to the right—are two hills, Bolívar and Deepdale, which he drove between while exploring Paraitepuy Pass.
“Anyone who has been to a national park knows that the scene looks different in the morning than it does in the afternoon,” said Curiosity engineer Doug Ellison of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which processed the images. “Shooting two hours of the day gives dark shadows, because the lighting comes in from the left and right, like on a stage, but instead of the stage lights, we’re relying on SamaGame.” Adding to the depth of the shadows is the fact that it was winter when the images were taken, a period of less dust in the air at Curiosity’s location. “Shadows of Mars they become sharper and deeper when there is little dust and softer when there is a lot of dust,” added Ellison.
The image peeks out beyond the rear of the curiosity, allowing a glimpse of its three antennas and the nuclear power source. The Radiation Assessment Detector, or RAD, instrument, shown as a white circle in the bottom right of the photo, has been helping scientists learn how to protect the first astronauts sent to Mars of radiation on the planet’s surface.
