Clear skies on Mars as NASA rover captures one of many sharpest panoramas of the Crimson Planet ever taken

This is among the sharpest, clearest panoramas ever captured by NASA’s Perseverance rover, displaying what it is actually like on the floor of Mars

The mosaic was stitched collectively utilizing 96 photographs taken by Perseverance at a location generally known as ‘Falbreen’.

Visible within the picture are are a rock that appears to be mendacity on high of a ripple of sand, a border line between two geologic models and views of hills 65km (40 miles) away.

Two variations of the picture have been launched: an enhanced-colour model (above) displaying simply how clear the Martian skies have been when the picture was taken, and a natural-colour model (under), displaying the true, rusty pink color of the planet’s sky.

The rover’s Mastcam-Z instrument captured the photographs on 26 May 2025.

“The relatively dust-free skies provide a clear view of the surrounding terrain,” says Jim Bell, Mastcam-Z’s principal investigator at Arizona State University in Tempe.

“And in this particular mosaic, we have enhanced the color contrast, which accentuates the differences in the terrain and sky.”

What we will see within the picture

A big rock seems to sit down on high of a darkish, crescent-shaped sand ripple to the appropriate of the centre of the mosaic. It’s about 4.4 metres (14 toes) from the rover.

This is a ‘float rock’, very like Skull rock, so-called as a result of it most likely shaped at a unique location and was transported to its present location by a pure course of like a landslide, water or wind.

The NASA science group suspect it arrived on the location seen within the picture earlier than the sand ripple shaped.

We also can see a brilliant white circle, left of centre and close to the underside, which is an abrasion patch.

The patch is 5cm (2 inches) vast and was made by Perseverance rover’s drill, to allow the science group to see beneath the floor of the rock earlier than deciding to drill a core pattern to be saved in one of many rover’s pattern tubes.

Perseverance made the abrasion on 22 May 2025 and analysed the rocks and soil with its science devices.

The science group again on Earth are significantly inquisitive about Falbreen as a result of this area might be a few of oldest terrain Perseverance has ever explored, even older than Jezero Crater.

We also can see the rover’s tracks on the appropriate, displaying the route it took to achieve this location.

And midway up the mosaic, there is a seen boundary between lighter-toned and darker-toned rocks.

The flat, lighter-coloured rocks are wealthy within the mineral olivine, whereas the darker rocks farther away are considered older clay-bearing rocks.