Curiosity Postcard Celebrates Rover’s 5,000th Day on Mars - NASA Science

Curiosity Postcard Celebrates Rover’s 5,000th Day on Mars PIA26700 Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech Photojournal Navigation Science Photojournal Curiosity Postcard Celebrates… Photojournal Home Photojournal Search Latest Content Galleries Feedback RSS About Downloads Curiosity Postcard Celebrates Rover’s 5,000th Day on Mars JPEG (459.76 KB) Description While parked at a sand ridge nicknamed “Chocolatal,” NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover used its black-and-white navigation cameras to capture panoramas at two times of day. The first was taken on Aug. 30, 2026, at 9:56 a.m. local Mars time; the second was taken on Sep. 2, 2026, at 5:39 p.m. local Mars time. Those dates correspond to the 5,000th and 5,003rd Martian days, or sols, of the mission. After being sent back to Earth, the two images were merged together. Color was added for an artistic interpretation of the scene, with blue representing the morning panorama and yellow representing the afternoon one. The resulting “postcard” is similar to past examples created with rover images, such as one taken in November 2021. The rover’s deck can be seen in the foreground, including its can-shaped UHF antenna, used for sending data to orbiting spacecraft, and its finned Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator ( MMRTG ), a nuclear power source, at its rear. The rover’s tracks can be seen trailing off in the distance. Curiosity is in the lower foothills of Mount Sharp, a 3-mile-tall (5-kilometer-tall) mountain that sits within Gale Crater. This image looks down toward the crater floor, with the crater rim barely perceptible on the horizon. 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. To learn more about Curiosity, visit: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/msl-curiosity/ Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From Photojournal Photojournal Search Photojournal Photojournal’s Latest Content Feedback — Company newsroom — sourced from NASA. Matter furnished by the company. Not a Notice Nearby paid placement. This page reprints matter furnished by the company from its official newsroom. Notice Nearby did not write this release. Read the original: https://science.nasa.gov/photojournal/curiosity-postcard-celebrates-rovers-5000th-day-on-mars