【India】

Source：Openness Information Network Editor：Games Time：2025-06-26 21:23:03

A Martian spacecraft spied a Martian rover rumbling through the red desert.

The Indianew image captured by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter — which has orbited Mars since 2006 — shows the space agency's car-sized Curiosity rovertraversing the terrain below as it scales the planet's 3.4-mile-high Mount Sharp.

"The image marks what may be the first time one of the agency’s Mars orbiters has captured the rover driving," NASA said in a statement.

You May Also Like

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter hosts a powerful camera — called the High Resolution Imaging Experiment, or HIRISE — which can spot surface objects as small as a kitchen table from some 160 to 200 miles above the surface. Here, we see the Curiosity rover as a dark spot, trailed by the robot's tracks as its six metallic wheels crossed the desert.

Mashable Light Speed Want more out-of-this world tech, space and science stories? Sign up for Mashable's weekly Light Speed newsletter. By clicking Sign Me Up, you confirm you are 16+ and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Thanks for signing up!

SEE ALSO: Aliens haven't contacted us. Scientists found a compelling reason why.

These tracks, spanning 1,050 feet (320 meters), were created over 11 separate drives. The orbiter spotted the tracks and rover on Feb. 28.

On Feb. 28, 2025, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured this view of the Curiosity rover exploring the Martian surface. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / University of Arizona

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

The Curiosity rover has driven over 21 miles of uneven desert since it landed in 2012, and is now ascending Mount Sharp as it investigates Mars' climatic and geologic past. Curiosity's observations point to a Martian past, billions of years ago, that supported floods, lakes, rivers, and even rain. For example, the rover revealed ripple formations on the surface, which is telltale evidence of small waves breaking on lake shores long ago. Observations like this suggest that Mars once was warm, wet, and quite habitable before it gradually transformed into the extremely dry and frigid desert we see today. (Today, Mars is 1,000 times drierthan the driest desert on Earth.)

Curiosity is currently headed to a new destination on Mount Sharp, a place home to expansive and compelling "boxworks" formations. From space, they look like spiderwebs. They are "believed to have formed when minerals carried by Mount Sharp's last pulses of water settled into fractures in surface rock and then hardened," NASA explained. "As portions of the rock eroded away, what remained were the minerals that had cemented themselves in the fractures, leaving the weblike boxwork."

【India】

Related Articles

Related Recommendations

Categories

Latest Articles

Popular Articles

Hot Recommendations

Featured Column

Quick Links

Quick Links