A 360-degree panorama of Mars captured by the Perseverance rover from Jezero Crater using 2.38 billion pixels sheds light on the ancient history of the planet’s river deltas.

After 1,000 days of exploration on Mars, NASA’s Perseverance rover is examining rocks representing various periods in the river delta’s billion-year history. Scientists are exploring this area of ​​Mars, known as Jezero Crater, to see if they can find evidence of ancient life recorded in the rocks. Perseverance Project Scientist Ken Farley takes a tour of the detailed panorama of the rover’s location in November 2023 captured by the Mastcam-Z instrument.

This 360-degree mosaic of 993 individual images and 2.38 billion pixels looks in all directions from what the rover’s science team calls “Airy Hill.” The image shows parts of the rover that appear more distorted towards the edges as a result of image processing.

Color enhancement applied to an image increases contrast and emphasizes color differences. The adjustment, made by predicting what the scene would look like under Earth-like lighting conditions, allows scientists on the mission to use their everyday experiences to interpret the scene. Mars’ appearance would be darker and more reddish.