NASA releases new Mars panoramas from Curiosity and Perseverance
Updated
Updated · Space.com · May 1
NASA releases new Mars panoramas from Curiosity and Perseverance
10 articles · Updated · Space.com · May 1
The 360-degree mosaics combine 1,031 images from Gale Crater and 980 from Jezero Crater, where the rovers operate about 2,345 miles apart.
Perseverance's view of Lac de Charmes highlights terrain shaped by an ancient lake and river delta, while Curiosity's panorama shows groundwater-formed boxwork ridges and mineral clues to Mars's thicker past atmosphere.
NASA said the paired views reveal two sides of Mars's history, supporting Curiosity's habitability studies and Perseverance's search for past life and sample collection for possible return to Earth.
Perseverance has priceless Mars samples, but their return mission was cancelled. What happens to these 'messages in a bottle' now?
With Martian storms actively destroying life's building blocks, how are rovers still discovering them preserved in ancient rocks?
NASA’s Mars Rovers Capture Record-Breaking Panoramas and Unlock Complex Water and Organic Chemistry Stories
Overview
In late 2025 and early 2026, NASA's Curiosity and Perseverance rovers captured stunning high-resolution panoramas of Mars, revealing key geological features like boxwork ridges formed by ancient groundwater and distant landscapes at Jezero Crater. These images, enabled by advanced cameras and automated stitching software, deepen our understanding of Mars' water history, showing prolonged groundwater activity and carbon dioxide sequestration that thinned the atmosphere, causing global cooling and drying. Perseverance's innovative dust removal and mineral analysis techniques led to caching samples with potential biosignatures, though ambiguity remains, driving the need for the Mars Sample Return mission. Additionally, electrical discharges detected by Perseverance influence atmospheric chemistry and pose challenges for future exploration.