Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Space
  3. News

Take a tour of Mars’ Gale Crater with the Curiosity rover

Georgina Torbet
By
NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover Finds A Changing Landscape

NASA has shared an incredible video touring of the surface of Mars, as captured by the Curiosity rover. The rover has been exploring the Gale Crater area since it landed in 2012, and the images it has taken show the dry, lifeless environment of the planet.

Recommended Videos

Just because Mars is without plants or animals though, that doesn’t mean it is static and unchanging. In fact, the seasons on Mars bring changes just as they do on Earth, and over millions of years, the Martian climate has changed dramatically. At one point in its history, Mars had plentiful liquid water on its surface, although this was lost over time as hydrogen evaporated away into space.

It was this period when water was plentiful that experts think it is most likely that life could have existed on the planet. That’s why both Curiosity and its sister rover Perseverance are searching for signs of ancient life in areas rich in clays, because these minerals form in the presence of water.

Related

“The rocks here will begin to tell us how this once-wet planet changed into the dry Mars of today, and how long habitable environments persisted even after that happened,” said Abigail Fraeman, Curiosity’s deputy project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The conditions in the Gale Crater right now are ideal for taking images, as it is winter so there is little dust around. That means the rover has a clear view to the very bottom of the crater, including the total of 16 miles (26 km) which Curiosity has driven so far over the course of its nine-year mission.

“Landing day is still one of the happiest days of my professional career,” said the mission’s new project manager, Megan Richardson Lin of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who has served in a number of roles in the Curiosity team over the mission. “We’re driving a robot as it explores another planet. Seeing how new discoveries and scientific results guide each day’s activities is extremely rewarding.”

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Georgina Torbet
Georgina Torbet
Space Writer
Georgina is the Digital Trends space writer, covering human space exploration, planetary science, and cosmology. She…
See Ingenuity helicopter take to the air in video captured by Perseverance rover
NASA's Perseverance Mars rover captured this video of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter's 54th flight on Aug. 3, 2023. After performing a preflight "wiggle check" with its rotors, the helicopter takes off, hovers at an altitude of 16 feet (5 meters), and rotates to the left, before touching back down. The mission conducted the short pop-up flight to check Ingenuity's navigation system.

NASA has released a video taken by the Perseverance rover on Mars that shows its companion, the helicopter Ingenuity, in flight. Ingenuity performed a short flight into the air and back down to the martian surface on August 3, and the rover was near enough to capture footage of the flight using its Mastcam-Z imager.

NASA's Perseverance Mars rover captured this video of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter's 54th flight on August 3, 2023. After performing a preflight "wiggle check" with its rotors, the helicopter takes off, hovers at an altitude of 16 feet (5 meters), and rotates to the left, before touching back down. The mission conducted the short pop-up flight to check Ingenuity's navigation system. NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS

Read more
Mars is spinning faster every year and no one knows exactly why
This annotated artist’s concept of NASA’s InSight lander on Mars points out the antennas on the spacecraft’s deck.

We're constantly learning more about the other planets in our solar system, especially Mars thanks to the multiple missions currently active there. But even retired missions can provide data for years after they have concluded, as is the case with a recent study that used data from the InSight lander.

The mission officially ended in December 2022 when the lander's solar panels became too covered in dust to provide enough power to keep it running. But recent analysis of data collected by the lander has revealed some surprises about Mars, including the fact that the planet is rotating faster every year.

Read more
NASA’s Mars helicopter glimpses Perseverance rover from the sky
NASA's Ingenuity helicopter.

NASA’s Mars Helicopter, Ingenuity, captured an aerial image of the Perseverance rover during its latest flight at the end of last week.

The aircraft and rover arrived together on the red planet in February 2021, and since then both have been operating inside the Jezero Crater, a dried-up lake that scientists believe could contain evidence of ancient life.

Read more