Armchair Astronomers Rejoice, NASA Posts First Image of Mars Containing Over 1 Billion Pixels

Using the Mars rover Curiosity, NASA has produced the first image of Mars larger than one billion pixels, offering armchair explorers a way to examine the Red Planet in greater detail than ever before.

Stitched together from nearly 900 exposures taken by multiple cameras onboard the rover, the picture reveals details of the landscape along Curiosity's route and is available with pan and zoom options.

Specifically, the full-circle scene surrounds the site where Curiosity collected its first scoops of dusty sand at a windblown spot scientists have since named Rocknest, and extends to Mount Sharp on the horizon.

"It gives a sense of place and really shows off the cameras' capabilities," said Bob Deen of the Multi-Mission Image Processing Laboratory at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "You can see the context and also zoom in to see very fine details."

Deen assembled the product using 850 frames from the telephoto camera of Curiosity's Mast Camera instrument as well as 21 frames from the Mastcam's wider-angle camera and 25 balck-and-white frames, mostly of the rover, from the Navigation Camera.

The images were taken on several different Mars days between Oct. 5 and Nov. 16, 2012, all of which were posted on a public website promptly after they were taken.

The new mosaic from NASA shows evidence of illumination effects from variations in the time of day when each photo was taken as well as differences in the clarity of the atmosphere due to variable dustiness throughout the months.

First launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. in late 2011, the total cost of the mission surrounding Curiosity is $2.5 billion, according to NASA, including $1.8 billion for development and scientific investigations and additional amounts for launch and operations.

At this point, the rover is employed by NASA's Mars Science Laboratory project as scientists there investigate the environmental history within Gale Crater, a location that was shown to be favorable for microbial life long ago.

Earlier this year, Curiosity made headlines after it sent back reports in April that, in the mind of researchers, proved that Mars once had a thicker atmosphere that has since been leaking slowly but steadily into space.