NASA’s Curiosity Looks Back After Reaching Elevation Milestone

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NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover captured this view looking back at the floor of Gale Crater, with the crater’s rim visible in the distance, on Sept. 5, 2026, the 5,006th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. Just nine days prior, on Aug. 26 (Sol 4,996), Curiosity set a mission milestone by reaching 1 kilometer of elevation above the crater floor. Since 2014, Curiosity has been climbing the lower foothills of Mount Sharp, a 3-mile-tall (5-kilometer-tall) mountain located within Gale Crater.

A sand ridge extends across the foreground of the image, and a trench left by the rover’s right front wheel is visible at right. Geologic layering inside the ridge, as well as the size and composition of its sand grains, will provide clues to how the feature formed.

This panorama is made up of 95 individual images taken by Curiosity’s Mast Camera, or Mastcam. The color in these images has been adjusted to match the lighting conditions as the human eye would see them on Earth.

Curiosity was built by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California. JPL leads the mission on behalf of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington as part of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program portfolio. Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego built and operates Mastcam.

To learn more about Curiosity, visit:

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/msl-curiosity/

Full text from nasa.gov (public domain).