Have you ever wanted to stand on the surface of Mars without being hounded by the minions of hell (Doom) or being stranded there while being Matt Damon (The Martian)? Well you can, and you don’t even have to enter a reality show in order to do so.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has released a short video which will give you a 360-degree view of the scenery around the Curiosity Mars Rover as it stands alongside the Namib Dune’s downward face. The video was shot using the Rover’s mastcam, which isn’t actually set up for 360-degree shots so this composite had to be stitched together by NASA’s staff before being released. For the second time, because the first release wasn’t quite as pretty.
What is perhaps most striking about this look at the Mars surface is just how much like Earth it appears. Rock formations and the general dune shape could just as easily be found in a particularly desolate spot on Earth itself. Perhaps there’s something to this colonisation dream after all.
Source: NASA
