【2020 Archives】

A Martian spacecraft spied a Martian rover rumbling through the red desert.

020 Archivesnew image captured by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter — which has orbited Mars since 2006 — shows the space agency's car-sized Curiosity rovertraversing the terrain below as it scales the planet's 3.4-mile-high Mount Sharp.

"The image marks what may be the first time one of the agency’s Mars orbiters has captured the rover driving," NASA said in a statement.

---

You May Also Like

---

---

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter hosts a powerful camera — called the High Resolution Imaging Experiment, or HIRISE — which can spot surface objects as small as a kitchen table from some 160 to 200 miles above the surface. Here, we see the Curiosity rover as a dark spot, trailed by the robot's tracks as its six metallic wheels crossed the desert. 

Mashable Light Speed Want more out-of-this world tech, space and science stories? Sign up for Mashable's weekly Light Speed newsletter. By clicking Sign Me Up, you confirm you are 16+ and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Thanks for signing up!

SEE ALSO: Aliens haven't contacted us. Scientists found a compelling reason why.

These tracks, spanning 1,050 feet (320 meters), were created over 11 separate drives. The orbiter spotted the tracks and rover on Feb. 28.

On Feb. 28, 2025, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured this view of the Curiosity rover exploring the Martian surface. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / University of Arizona

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

The Curiosity rover has driven over 21 miles of uneven desert since it landed in 2012, and is now ascending Mount Sharp as it investigates Mars' climatic and geologic past. Curiosity's observations point to a Martian past, billions of years ago, that supported floods, lakes, rivers, and even rain. For example, the rover revealed ripple formations on the surface, which is telltale evidence of small waves breaking on lake shores long ago. Observations like this suggest that Mars once was warm, wet, and quite habitable before it gradually transformed into the extremely dry and frigid desert we see today. (Today, Mars is 1,000 times drierthan the driest desert on Earth.)

Curiosity is currently headed to a new destination on Mount Sharp, a place home to expansive and compelling "boxworks" formations. From space, they look like spiderwebs. They are "believed to have formed when minerals carried by Mount Sharp's last pulses of water settled into fractures in surface rock and then hardened," NASA explained. "As portions of the rock eroded away, what remained were the minerals that had cemented themselves in the fractures, leaving the weblike boxwork."

---

Related Stories

---

• The secretive lab that built ‘the bomb’ now scours Mars for signs of life
• Scientists seek to tempt aliens out of hiding with chemical in blood
• The best telescopes for gazing at stars and solar eclipses in 2024
• A NASA rover just exposed something on Mars that eluded orbiters
• If a scary asteroid will actually strike Earth, here's how you'll know

As NASA's rovers find more and more evidence of past water on Mars, it's becoming clear that Mars was once a planet friendly to life, capable of hosting the temperate environs that could potentially host microbes.

Still today, however, there's no compelling proof that life ever existed on Mars. But there are quite a few Martian robots, both dead and alive.

Topics NASA

• Shopping
• Life
• Deals
• Entertainment
• Digital Culture
• Science
• Games
• Social Good

• Best vacuum mop combo deal: Save $140 on the Tineco Floor One S5
• Best robot vacuum deal: Save $200 on Narwal Freo Z Ultra at Amazon
• Samsung 77
• Reddit sports mods, users calling for a ban on X links in posts
• NYT mini crossword answers for May 9, 2025
• Nintendo Sale: Save up to 95% on titles like Overcooked! 2
• Best tablet deal: Get a OnePlus Pad 2 for $50 off with free gift
• Best free crypto courses
• Hidden Siri Commands and Unusual Responses
• NYT Connections Sports Edition hints and answers for January 20: Tips to solve Connections #119

• The next frontier in wearables is helping couples conceive
• This podcast will help you fall (and stay) asleep
• Ninjas in Pyjamas beat SK Gaming to win 'CS:GO' champinoship
• 6 vegetarian Thanksgiving mains even carnivores crave
• 'Fantastic Beasts' can't conjure 'Harry Potter' magic at the box office
• An advanced weather satellite will launch to space Saturday: Watch it here
• Little boy proposes to his classmate with his mom's diamond ring
• Thousands of taxpayers don't want to pay for Buckingham Palace renovation
• Forget Jess: Dave Rygalski is the best 'Gilmore Girls' boyfriend
• Selena Gomez caps off AMA win with emotional speech: 'You don't have to stay broken'

• The Sound and the “Furious”
• Atletico Madrid vs. Leverkusen 2025 livestream: Watch Champions League for free
• Chicago Bulls vs. Los Angeles Clippers 2025 livestream: Watch NBA online
• NYT mini crossword answers for January 22, 2025
• Ryzen 5 1600X vs. 1600: Which should you buy?
• 6 Trump Inauguration speech highlights — and how the internet reacted
• Reddit sports mods, users calling for a ban on X links in posts
• Samsung soundbar deal: save $210 at Best Buy's Four Day Sale
• Waitin’ on the Student Debt Jubilee
• Best robot vacuum deal: Save $400 on Shark Robot Vacuum and Mop

• Outdoor speaker deal: Save $20 on the Soundcore Boom 2
• Shop the LG C3 Series 65
• Best Samsung Galaxy Watch deal: Save $80 on Galaxy Watch 7
• NYT mini crossword answers for January 20, 2025
• NYT Strands hints, answers for May 18
• NYT mini crossword answers for January 21, 2025
• OpenAI could release agentic AI tool Operator soon
• Shakhtar vs. Brest 2025 livestream: Watch Champions League for free
• 10 Tech Predictions for 2017
• Macbook Air M3 2024 deal: Save 15% at Amazon