Mars Panorama Shows Off Rocks, Mountains and Curiosity Rover

Hey, it’s Mars in your browser! Panning around this scene that the Mars Curiosity rover captured earlier this month is the next best thing to being on the Red Planet.

Close by the rover’s is the terrain that proved far more challenging for mission planners than anticipated, and further in the distance you can see mountains — including the ultimate destination for this mission, Mount Sharp (Aeolis Mons).

The panorama, done by Andrew Bodrov, is based on pictures that Curiosity took during Sol 739 of its mission on Mars, which began in August 2012.

The Curiosity mission recently drew the concern of a NASA Senior Review panel, which said that the mission may be moving too fast to Mount Sharp and sacrificing looking carefully at other sites that could preserve signs of habitability.

The rover recently passed over a drilling target due to the nature of the rocks it was looking at, which were loose, unstable and at risk to the rover if they moved in an unpredictable way.