Life on Mars

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The Curiosity Rover made its first surface journey last Thursday … and if you’d been sitting on the back of it, this is the view you would have got, looking back on the ground covered, with the tracks of the wheels firmly imprinted in the sandy and rocky surface.

PARALELL:

Curiosity Rover tracks - parallel
Mars Perseverance NLF/NRF_0015_0668288016_786ECM_N0030386NCAM02001_01_295J
Mars2020/Perseverance/Navcams Sol 15 – NASA/JPL-Caltech
Stereo: Manzoni/May

CROSS-EYED:

Curiosity Rover tracks - cross-eyed
Mars Perseverance NLF/NRF_0015_0668288016_786ECM_N0030386NCAM02001_01_295J
Mars2020/Perseverance/Navcams Sol 15 – NASA/JPL-Caltech
Stereo: Manzoni/May

This stereo image was taken on March 4th during Perseverance’s first drive on Mars and was captured by the rover’s Navigation Cameras. These are the first tracks left by the rover’s aluminum alloy wheels on the floor of Jezero crater. The wheels are lined with grousers specifically designed for the Martian environment. The little white foreground feature is one of the two wind sensors mounted on the rover’s mast, encircled by six wind detectors to measure wind speed and direction, and is part of Perseverance’s suite of sensors called MEDA (Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer). We have taken small artistic liberties with the extreme foreground to make this stereo comfortable to view.

BM & CM

Curiosity Rover tracks - anaglyph
Mars Perseverance NLF/NRF_0015_0668288016_786ECM_N0030386NCAM02001_01_295J
Mars2020/Perseverance/Navcams Sol 15 – NASA/JPL-Caltech
Stereo: Manzoni/May