Martian Panorama is a circular virtual tour of the planet. High resolution photo of the surface of Mars (43 photos) What is the resolution of the most detailed panorama of Mars

> Panorama of Mars from the Curiosity and Opportunity rover

Explore online panorama of Mars from the Curiosity and Opportunity rover: the surface of Mars in 360 degrees, a moving interactive map in high resolution.

NASA has released the first official images showing the surface Mars in crystal clear detail, captured by his Curiosity rover. Panorama of Mars consists of one billion pixels stitched together from about 900 exposures taken by cameras on board Curiosity.

Panorama from the Opportunity rover

The 360-degree panorama of Mars was filmed from where Curiosity collected its first dusty sand samples, a windswept site called "Rocknest", and captures Mount Sharp on the horizon.

Bob Deen, who works in the Multi-Purpose Imaging Laboratory at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, said it gives a feel for the location and shows the real capabilities of the camera. "You can see the environment as a whole and also zoom in to see the smallest details," he added.

Dean assembled the image using 850 frames taken with the telephoto lens of Curiosity's Mast Camera instrument. He then added 21 frames from Mastcam's wider-angle camera, and 25 black-and-white frames (mostly images of the rover itself) from the navigation camera. The images were taken over several different Martian days between October 5 and November 16, 2012.

Earlier this year, photographer Andrew Bodrov used Curiosity images to assemble his own mosaics of the planet, including at least one gigapixel panorama. His mosaic shows light effects as the time of day changes. It also shows changes in atmospheric clarity, consistent with changes in dust levels during the month the images were taken.

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission is using Curiosity and the rover's 10 research instruments to study the environmental history of Gale Crater, where the mission's preliminary findings suggest conditions may once have been favorable for microbial life.

Malin Space Science Systems, a San Diego-based company, created and operates the Mastcam cameras on Curiosity. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, built the rover and its navigation camera, and manages the project through NASA's Science Program Directorate in Washington.

Curiosity took a self-portrait at the Big Sky drilling site

Bodrov spent two weeks creating the interactive image using 407 frames from the narrow and medium angle cameras located on top of the rover. He also used a bit of digital retouching in his work. He told Popular Science that the camera is only two megapixels, which by today's standards is not much at all. “Of course, the need to fly these electronic components from Earth to Mars, and encounter them with radiation and other hazards, meant they couldn't use conventional cameras,” he said. Bodrov added the sky and previous Curiosity images to the 90,000x45,000 pixel panorama using Photoshop.

In March, NASA management calmed down after a computer system failure that stopped all operations for an entire week was resolved. This meant they could get back to studying the rock dust found on the planet. From April 4, radio communications between Earth and Mars will be blocked by the Sun, which means that work will be stopped again until May 1.

For now, the six-wheeled, $2 billion rover, which landed on the planet in August to begin its two-year mission, will continue to analyze rock samples containing all the chemical components necessary for life.

Scientists identified sulfur, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and carbon in the dust that Curiosity extracted from sedimentary rock near an ancient riverbed in what is known as Yellowknife Bay within Gale Crater. They believe that billions of years ago, water filled the crater and poured out of it to form streams that must have been up to 3 feet deep.

This color mosaic image taken by the Curiosity rover shows layers of material along the edges of valleys at the Pahrump Hills site.

At the time of the project's discovery, scientist John Grotzinger said: "We have found a habitable environment that is so soft and life-supporting that probably if you were there and this water surrounded you, you could drink it ".

Ultimately, scientists plan to take the rover to a three-mile-high hill that may be covered by layers of sediment lifted from the floor of Gale Crater.

The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) presented a magnificent 360-degree panorama of Mars captured by the cameras of the Curiosity robot.

The rover reportedly climbed onto the Naukluft Plateau in the region of Aeolis Mons, informally known as Mount Sharp. The journey was fraught with risks, as the rover had to navigate between sharp rocks and boulders that pose a threat to aluminum wheels.

By the way, traces of damage on Curiosity’s wheels became noticeable back in 2013. Therefore, NASA specialists have to carefully plan any route in order to maximize the active life of the robot.

The presented high-resolution panorama allows you to examine the fascinating Martian expanses in great detail. The image captures a landscape that has been shaped over millions of years. The panorama in its original size 29163 × 6702 pixels can be viewed here.

We add that the Curiosity rover was sent to the Red Planet in November 2011 and arrived at its destination in August 2012. In the fall of 2014, the device reached one of the main goals of its mission - the aforementioned Mount Aeolis. During its stay on the Red Planet, the rover collected and transmitted a large amount of important scientific data to Earth.

Impact crater measuring about three kilometers

The surface of Mars is a dry and barren wasteland, covered with old volcanoes and craters.

Dunes through the eyes of Mars Odyssey

Photos show it can be hidden by a single sandstorm, hiding it from sight for days. Despite its formidable conditions, Mars is better studied by scientists than any other world in the solar system, except our own, of course.

Since the planet has almost the same tilt as Earth, and it has an atmosphere, it means there are seasons. The surface temperature is about -40 degrees Celsius, but at the equator it can reach +20. On the surface of the planet there are traces of water, and relief features formed by water.

Scenery

Let's take a closer look at the surface of Mars, information provided by numerous orbiters, as well as rovers, allows us to fully understand what the red planet is like. The ultra-clear images show dry, rocky terrain covered in fine red dust.

Red dust is actually iron oxide. Everything from the ground to small stones and rocks is covered with this dust.

Since there is no water or confirmed tectonic activity on Mars, its geological features remain virtually unchanged. Compared to the surface of the Earth, which experiences constant changes associated with water erosion and tectonic activity.

Surface of Mars video

The landscape of Mars consists of a variety of geological structures. It is home to plants known throughout the solar system. That's not all. The most famous canyon in the solar system is Valles Marineris, also located on the surface of the Red Planet.

Look at the pictures from the Mars rovers, which show many details that are not visible from orbit.

If you want to look at Mars online, then

Surface photo

The images below are from Curiosity, the rover currently actively exploring the red planet.

To view in full screen mode, click on the button at the top right.

Panorama transmitted by the Curiosity rover

This panorama represents a section of Gale Crater where Curiosity is conducting its research. The high hill in the center is Mount Sharp, to the right of it you can see the ring rim of the crater in the haze.

To view in full size, save the image to your computer!

These photographs of the surface of Mars are from 2014 and, in fact, are the most recent at the moment.

Among all the features of the landscape of Mars, perhaps the most widely publicized are the mesas of Cydonia. Early photographs of the Sedonia region showed a hill shaped like a “human face”. However, later images, with higher resolution, showed us an ordinary hill.

Planet sizes

Mars is a pretty small world. Its radius is half that of Earth, and it has a mass that is less than one tenth of ours.

Dunes, MRO image

More about Mars: The planet's surface consists mainly of basalt, covered with a thin layer of dust and iron oxide, which has the consistency of talc. Iron oxide (rust, as it is commonly called) gives the planet its characteristic red hue.

Volcanoes

In ancient times, volcanoes erupted continuously on the planet for millions of years. Due to the fact that Mars does not have plate tectonics, huge volcanic mountains were formed. Olympus Mons was formed in a similar way and is the largest mountain in the solar system. It is three times higher than Everest. Such volcanic activity may also partly explain the deepest valley in the solar system. Valles Marineris is believed to have been formed by the breakdown of material between two points on the surface of Mars.

Craters

Animation showing changes around a crater in the Northern Hemisphere

There are many impact craters on Mars. Most of these craters remain untouched because there are no forces on the planet capable of destroying them. The planet lacks wind, rain and plate tectonics that cause erosion on Earth. The atmosphere is much thinner than that of the Earth, so even small meteorites are able to reach the ground.

The current surface of Mars is very different from what it was billions of years ago. Orbiter data has shown that there are many minerals and signs of erosion on the planet that indicate the presence of liquid water in the past. It is possible that small oceans and long rivers once completed the landscape. The last remnants of this water were trapped underground in the form of ice.

Total number of craters

There are hundreds of thousands of craters on Mars, of which 43,000 are larger than 5 kilometers in diameter. Hundreds of them were named after scientists or famous astronomers. Craters less than 60 km across have been named after cities on Earth.

The most famous is Hellas Basin. It measures 2,100 km across and is up to 9 km deep. It is surrounded by emissions that stretch 4,000 km from the center.

Cratering

Most of the craters on Mars were likely formed during the late "heavy bombardment" period of our solar system, which occurred approximately 4.1 to 3.8 billion years ago. During this period, a large number of craters formed on all celestial bodies in the Solar System. Evidence for this event comes from studies of lunar samples, which have shown that most rocks were created during this time interval. Scientists cannot agree on the reasons for this bombing. According to the theory, the gas giant's orbit changed and, as a result, the orbits of objects in the main asteroid belt and the Kuiper belt became more eccentric, reaching the orbits of the terrestrial planets.