
An incredible panoramic view sent from the surface of the red planet has been created using images taken by the Mars Curiosity rover.

It reveals the landscape of one of our closest galactic neighbours, which has been home to the exploratory vehicle since it landed in Gale Crater in 2012.

One of the on-board cameras captured 16 separate scenic images that show various points on its journey, as seen from the top of the Vera Rubin Ridge, which were then stitched together to form the sweeping image.

Thanks to some clever visual effects that give the scene a blue hue, rather than the distinctive rusty red normally associated with Mars, the vista takes on a strangely familiar appearance to earthling eyes,

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Sixteen images of the landscape were stitched together by Nasa. The space agency also adjusted the white balance on the images to make the photo look like it would do under normal conditions on Earth, giving the scene a distinctive blue hue. In the background, a mountain can be seen that is 50 miles (80 km) away

The stunning detail of the Martian landscape was taken on a ridge of elevation 327 metres (1,073 feet). The image looks over the Gale Crater which is about 3.5 to 3.8 billion years old and covers an area 96 miles (154 km) in diameter - about the same size as Rhode Island and Connecticut combined

Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, released the panorama, which gives an overview of the rover's path along the crater's outer edge, although the photos themselves were all taken on October 25, 2017, by Curiosity's Mast Camera, or Mastcam.

At an elevation of 327 metres (1,073 feet) the image looks over the crater, which is about 3.5 to 3.8 billion years old and covers an area 96 miles (154 kilometres) in diameter - about the same size as Rhode Island and Connecticut combined.

Most of the scene's horizon is the crater's northern rim, around 1.2 miles (two kilometres) above the rover.

Due to the incredibly thin atmosphere of the planet, a mountain that is more than 50 miles (80 km) away can be seen in the background of the stunning shot.

As well as stitching the photos together to create a seamless shot, Nasa also adjusted its white-balance so that the colour of the rock strewn inclines and flat surface of the crater's interior appear as they would under daylight conditions on Earth.

The Mars Curiosity rover was initially launched from Cape Canaveral, an American Air Force station in Florida, on November 26, 2011.

This aerial shot shows the area that the Mars Curiosity rover is in and where it has travelled so far on its journey. The 'hill outside gale crater' at the top of the shot is visible in the panoramic image and is over 50 miles (80 km) away from the rover

Nasa also released an annotated version of the panoramic photo that shows notable places from the mission, such as 'Murray Buttes' and the Peace Vallis Channel. The entire route of the rover so far has been seen and mapped for the first time (pictured)

This close-up it shows the original landing site from 2012, Bradbury Landing, where Curiosity touched down more than 2,000 days ago. It also shows Yellowknife Bay, the place where the rover found an ancient freshwater-lake environment that would have offered all of the basic chemical ingredients for microbial life

After embarking on a 350 million mile (560 million km) journey, the rover touched down only 1.5 miles (2.4 km) away from the earmarked landing spot.

After a successful landing on August 6, 2012, the rover has since travelled about 11 miles (18 km).

The mission has subsequently approached the southern edge of the ridge and examined several outcrop locations along the way.

In a written statement, Curiosity project scientist Ashwin Vasavada said: 'Even though Curiosity has been steadily climbing for five years, this is the first time we could look back and see the whole mission laid out below us.

'From our perch on Vera Rubin Ridge, the vast plains of the crater floor stretch out to the spectacular mountain range that forms the northern rim of Gale Crater.'

The space agency also released an annotated version of the panorama photo which shows notable places from the mission.

Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, released the panorama, which gives an overview of much of the rover's 11 mile (18 km) path along the crater's outer edge. This image shows a scene from the far left of the crater, when viewed from the top of the Vera Rubin Ridge

Most of the scene's horizon is the Gale Crater's northern rim, around 1.2 miles (two kilometres) above the rover. The left-eye camera of the rover's Mastcam took this image, which shows a scene from around two fifths along the ridge

Darwin is an impact crater that is around 109 miles (176km) in diameter.

It was first spotted by an orbiting spacecraft and experts believe it could reveal the inner makeup and history of the plains on the floor of Gale Crater.

It could also provide insight into past flows of water and may provide evidence of whether water played a roll in layering rock in the region.

Bradbury landing is Curiosity's 2012 landing site, and was named after the late author Ray Bradbury who wrote various books about Mars, including 'The Martian Chronicles'.

Yellowknife Bay is an ancient lake and stream deposit, that could have offered favourable conditions for microbial life.

THE NASA MARS CURIOSITY ROVER WAS LAUNCHED IN 2011 AND HAS IMPROVED OUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE RED PLANET The Mars Curiosity rover was initially launched from Cape Canaveral, an American Air Force station in Florida on November 26, 2011. After embarking on a 350 million mile (560 million km) journey, the £1.8 billion ($2.5 billion) research vehicle touched down only 1.5 miles (2.4 km) away from the earmarked landing spot. After a successful landing on August 6th, 2012, the rover has travelled about 11 miles (18 km). It was launched on the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) spacecraft and the rover constituted 23 per cent of the mass of the total mission. With 80 kg (180 lb) of scientific instruments on board, the rover weighs a total of 899 kg (1,982 lb) and is powered by a plutonium fuel source. The rover is 2.9 metres (9.5 ft) long by 2.7 metres (8.9 ft) wide by 2.2 metres (7.2 ft) in height. The Mars curiosity rover was initially intended to be a two-year mission to gather information to help answer if the planet could support life, has liquid water, study the climate and the geology of Mars an has since been active for more than 2,000 days The rover was initially intended to be a two-year mission to gather information to help answer if the planet could support life, has liquid water, study the climate and the geology of Mars. Due to its success, the mission has been extended indefinitely and has now been active for over 2,000 days. The rover has several scientific instruments on board, including the mastcam which consists of two cameras and can take high-resolution images and videos in real colour. So far on the journey of the car-sized robot it has encountered an ancient streambed where liquid water used to flow, not long after it also discovered that billions of years ago, a nearby area known as Yellowknife Bay was part of a lake that could have supported microbial life. Advertisement

These rocks were exposed around 70 million years ago by the removal of overlying layers of dust and debris that were peeled back by wind erosion.

Bagnold Dunes is a tribute to British military engineer Ralph Bagnold (1896 to 1990), who studied how winds move sand particles of dunes on Earth.

These dunes are actively migrating and are the first active dunes explored in situ on another planet.

Researchers are hoping it will help us understand modern winds and aeolian processes.

Last week, the Curiosity team on Earth received copious new images from the rover through a record-setting relay by Nasa's Maven orbiter, surpassing a gigabit of data during a single relay session from Mars for the first time in history. This image shows the view of the far right hand side of the crater, from Curiosity's perspective

The Mars Curiosity rover was initially launched from Cape Canaveral - an American Air Force station in Florida on November 26, 2011. This image, which shows the view from just over halfway along the ridge, displays metre measurement bars for scale

Twin craters is believed by experts to have been created by intense underground steam explosions.

The larger of the two craters was named Arima after a town on the island of Trinidad and the smaller crater has been left unnamed.

Yellowknife Bay is an ancient freshwater-lake environment that offered all of the basic chemical ingredients for microbial life.

Farther north are the channel and fan of Peace Vallis, relics of the streams that carried water and sediment into the crater about three billion years ago.

Last week, the Curiosity team on Earth received copious new images from the rover through a record-setting relay by Nasa's Maven orbiter, surpassing a gigabit of data during a single relay session from Mars for the first time in history.

DO SCIENTISTS BELIEVE WE COULD EVER FIND LIFE ON MARS? Over the years, scientists have found a number of promising signs that life may have been present on Mars, including evidence of water, chemical reactions, and expansive ice lakes beneath the surface. Life on Mars is unlikely to have flourished on the surface, given the harsh conditions – including radiation, solar winds, and frigid temperatures. As a result, many scientists believe organisms evolved to live beneath the surface of the Red Planet. In November 2016, Dr Christian Schröder, an environmental science and planetary exploration lecturer at Stirling University, said: ‘For life to exist in the areas we investigated, it would need to find pockets far beneath the surface, located away from the dryness and radiation present on the ground.’ This is supported by evidence of water beneath the surface. Researchers have identified mudstones and sedimentary bands on Mars, which only form when there is water present for thousands of years. Vast oceans of ice have also been uncovered, lying just below the surface of the planet. The presence of ice and water beneath the Red Planet greatly increases the chances that there was once at least microscopic life on Mars and that some form of the organism could be living there today. 'Any place on Earth we find liquid water we find life,’ Jim Crocker, vice president of Lockheed Martin's Space Systems said in August 2016. ‘It's very exciting to understand the possibility that life could possibly have started on Mars before it lost its atmosphere, and perhaps even in the deeper surfaces, where water is still liquid because of the heat of the planet, perhaps there's bacterial life.' Having water just below the surface also means that human colonies could survive and even thrive on the planet and indicates that fuel for manned spaceflight could be manufactured there. In 2017, Nasa's Curiosity rover also found evidence of boron on the red planet's surface. This is another key ingredient for life, and scientists say the find is a huge boost in the hunt for life. Boron was unearthed in the Gale Cater, which is 3.8 billion years old, younger than the likely formation of life on Earth. That means the conditions from which life could have potentially grown may have existed on ancient Mars, long before organisms began to develop on Earth. A controversial 2001 study into a 4.5 billion-year-old meteorite, dubbed ALH84001, which was found in Antarctica's Allan Hills ice field in 1984, claimed it had definitive prove of life on Mars. Meteorite ALH84001 was blasted off the surface of Mars by a comet or asteroid 15 million years ago, and Nasa researchers said it contains proof the Red Planet was once teeming with bugs which lived at the bottom of shallow pools and lakes. They also suggested there would have been plants or organisms capable of photosynthesis and complex ecosystems on Mars. However British experts said at the time that the evidence, though exciting, had to be treated with caution and could not be taken as conclusive, since many non-biological chemical processes could also explain what was found. Advertisement

The team is preparing to resume use of Curiosity's drill for acquiring powdered rock samples to be analysed by laboratory instruments inside the rover.

This will be more than a year after the most recent of the 15 times the drill has pulled sample material from Martian rocks.

Since leaving the Vera Rubin Ridge site, the rover has climbed another 85 feet (26 meters) in elevation.

In recent days, the Mastcam recorded component images for a panorama looking uphill southward toward the mission's next major destination area.

As well as the lanscape photo which was stitched together by 16 images from the wide-angle lens of the left camera on the rover, the car-sized robot also took closer images of a specific spot for more detail (pictured)

That is called the Clay Unit because observations from orbit detected clay minerals there.

The rover team intends to put Curiosity's drill to work on Vera Rubin Ridge before proceding to the Clay Unit.

Resuming use of the drill requires an enterprising workaround for a mechanical problem that appeared in late 2016 and suspended its use.

A motor within the drill that advances the bit no longer operates reliably.

The workaround being evaluated thoroughly on a test rover at JPL avoids this issue by moving the whole drill forward, with bit extended, by motion of the robotic arm.