Striking Mars Landscape Captured In Color By NASA Rover (Video)

Sep 11, 2016

main_pia21044 — This view from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows an outcrop with finely layered rocks within the "Murray Buttes" region on lower Mount Sharp. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

NASA has released new color images taken by the Curiosity Mars rover, which it says will help increase understanding of the red planet’s landscape.

The pictures, taken on 8 September, were taken in the “Murray Buttes” region of lower Mount Sharp, an 18,000ft mountain, where the Rover has been based since 2014.

Curiosity is looking into how and when habitable conditions on Mars that were once present evolved into drier conditions less favorable for life on the planet.

Curiosity Project scientist Ashwin Vasavada said the team was “thrilled” to undertake the expedition, describing the landscape as “a bit of American desert Southwest on Mars”.

The striking rock formations captured by the rover’s Mast Camera, are the remnants of ancient sandstone which were formed when winds deposited sand on the lower regions of the mountain.

Mr Vasavada said: “Studying these buttes up close has given us a better understanding of ancient sand dunes that formed and were buried, chemically changed by groundwater, exhumed and eroded to form the landscape that we see today.”

Since the images were taken, the rover has left the buttes and is set to continue its journey higher up Mount Sharp.

The Curiosity team plan to create several mosaics from the images, with NASA saying they compare to photos taken in American national parks.

New findings on Mars. Nasa revealed the layered geologic past of Mars in a series of photos returned by the Curiosity Mars rover, which is currently exploring the “Murray Buttes” region of the red planet. Maria Mercedes Galuppo (@mariamgaluppo) has more.

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