See a Rover’s Day on Mars in 10 Seconds

Isaac Schultz
Thu, December 28, 2023 

The Front Hazcam view of Mount Sharp.

What were you doing on November 8, 2023? I couldn’t say for myself, but I can tell you what NASA’s Curiosity rover was doing: sitting still on its 4,002nd day on Mars, taking snapshots of the Martian surface.

Now, mission team members at Jet Propulsion Laboratory have stitched together two series of frames from the rover’s front and rear Hazcams to create a unique video capturing time’s passage on the Red Planet.

Later in the day, the camera’s exposure times are over a minute, which causes noise in the images that look a bit like snow. (We can assure you, it is not snowing on Mars.) Around eight seconds into the Rear Hazcam view, a cosmic ray hit the camera sensor, causing a black splotch in the image.

Other visual artifacts may be due to Martian dust that has settled on the camera lenses over Curiosity’s 11-year tenure on the planet. And though the Hazcam views capture Mars in black-and-white, NASA publishes plenty of color images taken by Curiosity.

Curiosity keeps trudging along on Mars’ surface thanks to the dogged work of NASA engineers. Earlier this year, the rover got a major software update—the first significant one since 2016—which scientists hope will increase its driving speed and reduce wear on its wheels, which may keep the mission active for even more years to come.