HiRISE Spots Curiosity Rover and Tracks from Orbit

By Nancy Atkinson - January 9, 2014 at 6:26 PM UTC | Planetary Science
ESP_034572_1755.jpg

Amazing, the things a birds-eye view allows you to see. Here's a color image from the HiRISE camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter showing the tracks of the Curiosity rover. In this most recent HiRISE image of the MSL rover, the tracks are visible from Yellowknife Bay to its location on 11 December 2013, several kilometers to the southwest. Even though some of these tracks are more than a year old, they are still visible.

As HiRISE team member

Christian Schaller said via Twitter

, "Take only pictures; leave only footprints." In this case, HiRISE took the pictures while MSL left the footprints!

HiRISE principal investigator Alfred McEwen explained the image: "Curiosity is progressing from the bright dust-covered area to a region with a darker surface, where saltating sand keeps the surface relatively free of dust. The scenery seen by the rover will be getting more interesting as it progresses toward Mount Sharp."

See a black and white image below, where you can actually see Curiosity, too:

[caption id="attachment_107938" align="aligncenter" width="580"]

Can you spot the Curiosity rover from orbit? Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona. [/caption]

See more details on these images, as well as get access to higher resolution versions

at the HiRISE website.

You can see a collection of images of Curiosity taken by HiRISE

here.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com