HUGE New Gale Crater Panoramas from Curiosity

By Nancy Atkinson - November 17, 2012 at 11:26 PM UTC | Planetary Science
pano-nov-15-2012b-crop.jpg

The image above is a gorgeous view of the Curiosity rover's surroundings in Gale Crater. However, it is just a sliver of an entire gigantic panorama put together by imaging wizard

Stuart Atkinson

. It's made from 34 different images as Curiosity took in a full view of its environs. You can see the

full panorama at Stu's Gale Gazette website

, where you can click on it to enlarge it, and as Stu says, "then take a good long look at the beautiful hills forming the rim of the crater. Just magnificent, aren't they?"

Sure are. Stu told me via email that all this view is missing are "some sand ships hissing over the distant plain, glinting and flashing gold, sapphire and emerald in the sunlight, and a line of sword-swinging Tharks rushing towards the rover!"

Ah, I love Stu's

Barsoomian

imagination...

Another imaging wizard from

UnmannedSpaceflight.com

, James Canvin, is also working on a

Gigapan of some of the latest images

and at last count has put together 371 images into one huge panorama! The Gigapan technology allows you to pan around and zoom in to see incredible details. Check it out.

UT writer

Ken Kremer

is also working on some new panoramas, along with his imaging partner Marco Di Lorenzo. Congrats are in order to Ken and Marco for the images, mosaics and panoramas they put together from the MSL mission being used in the PBS NOVA special presentation that aired this week, Ultimate Mars Challenge. The show is now available to watch online:

on Universe Today here

, or at

the PBS website here

. There is

additional information about the show 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