Explore Mars’ Gediz Vallis Channel With NASA’s Curiosity Rover (360 View)

Drag your mouse or move your phone to look around within this 360-degree panorama provided by NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover. This view was captured at Gediz Vallis channel, a feature that formed billions of years ago during one of the last wet periods seen on this part of the Red Planet.

Curiosity captured this vista using the left black-and-white navigation camera mounted on its mast, or “head,” on Feb. 1, 2024, the 4,084th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. The panorama is made up of 10 images that were stitched together after being sent back to Earth.

Gediz Vallis channel was one of the last features to form on the 3-mile-tall (5-kilometer-tall) Mount Sharp, the base of which Curiosity has been ascending since 2014. The channel is filled with piles of boulders and other debris that may have been brought here by debris flows (rapid, wet landslides) or dry avalanches. Also visible in the image is the top of Curiosity’s including ports where the rover drops powderized rock samples into instruments within its belly; the robotic arm and its drill are stowed at the right.

Please note: Not all browsers support viewing 360-degree videos. YouTube supports their playback on computers using Chrome, Firefox, MS Edge, and Opera browsers. For the best experience on a mobile device, play this video in the YouTube app. To improve the resolution, open the video settings (using the gear icon) and select the highest quality available. For more about Curiosity, visit: https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/home/.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UC Berkeley