Curiosity · Mars Live Frames

These are not artistic impressions — each picture below was taken by a camera on a vehicle driving on another planet. A "sol" is a Martian day (24 h 39 min 35 s), so the sol number in every caption is the local date on Mars.

PerseveranceCuriosityOpportunitySpirit

Why we keep going back

Mars once had rivers, lakes and a thicker atmosphere. Curiosity found evidence that Gale Crater held a habitable lake, detected organic molecules and seasonal methane, and is climbing a mountain built from the sediments of a vanished lake system.

Reading a raw Mars image

Frames arrive nearly monochrome from each individual detector; colour is assembled from repeated exposures through different filters, and hazard-avoidance cameras (Fishtail, Navcam) are wide-angle and slightly distorted. Dust storms and the distant sun make the sky butterscotch by day and occasionally blue at sunset — the reverse of Earth, caused by fine dust scattering red light.

Time delay

Radio takes 3–22 minutes each way depending on orbital positions, so no rover is driven live. Each mission day starts with a command upload built from overnight imagery, then the vehicle drives and observes autonomously until the next sol.

Imagery: NASA/JPL-Caltech Mars Assemblé Camera archive · public domain · mirrored at Tukuk-OS.