In the image above from earlier this month, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is looking down on Mars' surface and caught a shot of the Curiosity Rover as it explored the surface of the planet. Here is the story from
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory:
NASA's Curiosity Mars rover and tracks from its driving are visible
in this view from orbit, acquired on April 11, 2014, by the High
Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars
Reconnaissance Orbiter.
The rover is near the largest butte in
the lower left quadrant of the image, at about a two o'clock position
relative to the butte. It appears bright blue in the exaggerated color
of this image.
The multi-layered location filling much of the left
half of this image is called "the Kimberley." Curiosity's science team
chose it, based on other HiRISE images, as a potential gold mine for the
rover mission. Black gold, that is, as organic material that, if found
at the Kimberley could be a biomarker (sign of past life) -- the holy
grail of Mars exploration.
Curiosity entered the area included in this
image on March 12, along the tracks visible near the upper left corner.
The distance between parallel wheel tracks is about 9 feet (2.7 meters).
The area included in the image is about 1,200 feet (about 365 meters)
wide. This view is an enhanced-color product from HiRISE observation
ESP_036128_1755, available at the HiRISE website at http://uahirise.org/releases/msl-kimberley.php.
The exaggerated color, to make differences in Mars surface materials
more apparent, makes Curiosity appear bluer than the rover really looks.
A stereo view combining information from this observation with
topography derived from earlier HiRISE observations, for a
three-dimensional appearance, is at PIA18082.
Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
