360 degree Watch MARS’s Namib Sand Dune with Curiosity

NASA has put out some pretty mind-blowing images of Mars from the Curiosity rover before, but these new ones are leaps and bounds above everything else.

According to a description on the NASA YouTube page, the spherical image includes a “portion of Mount Sharp on the horizon”, a prominent mountain on Mars. It gives you a view of the Namib Dune, which is part of the Bagnold Dunes.

Last October, Curiosity found that Mars was once, billions of years ago, capable of storing water in lakes over “an extended period of time”, the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the body behind the rover said. The dunes stretch for miles along the base of Mount Sharpe.

The mission’s examination of the dunes field is the first close look at active sand dunes anywhere other than earth, NASA said. It may be noted here that a Martian day is roughly 40 minutes longer than a day on Earth. Analysis shows the dunes can move as much as 3 feet per Earth year. It was an exhilarating view, but the way it had been created – by stitching together lots of different photographs – meant the final video offered a unusual, fishbowl-like picture. Unfortunately though the Curiosity Rover is not equipped with a camera that can capture 360 degree images, so the new image has been spiced together by hand at NASA using dozens of high-resolution images.

There’s a new way to see Mars.

The video, which was captured by the Curiosity Mars rover, is accessible on the YouTube smartphone app.