Space & Astronomy

First-of-its-kind NASA image shows rover on Mars taken from space

By T.K. Randall
April 29, 2025 ·  1 comment

The rover looks very lonely in this image. Image Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / University of Arizona When people talk about sending humans to Mars, one aspect that is perhaps not well realized is the sheer isolation of being on the surface of another world - tens or even hundreds of millions of miles from Earth.

This isolation was recently brought into sharp focus courtesy of NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter which managed to snap a picture from space of the Curiosity rover down on the surface.

Given how far away from the spacecraft it is, the rover appears as little more than a small black dot with a pair of tyre tracks - covering around 320 meters - visible snaking across the ground behind it.

If ever a single image managed to capture the isolation of Mars exploration - this is it.Imagine being part of a manned mission to Mars during which some accident results in you being the only survivor (kind of like in the Ridley Scott movie The Martian. )

In such a scenario, you would very much be the most isolated human being in the entire universe.

While Curiosity is not alone on Mars (there are other rovers), it will never meet any of the others, meaning that it will remain very much on its own until its systems or power supply eventually fails.

It is quite remarkable just what can be captured in such a simple, single image.

Source: Science Alert | Comments (1)

Tags: Mars