NASA assembles a “postcard” for the 5,000th sol of the Curiosity rover

The Curiosity rover has marked its 5,000th Martian day — a sol — and got an unusual “postcard” for the occasion. NASA joined two black-and-white panoramas that the rover’s navigation cameras shot while it stood by a sandy ridge nicknamed Chocolatal.

The first panorama was taken on August 30, 2026, at 9:56 local Martian time, the second on September 2 at 17:39. Those dates correspond to the 5,000th and 5,003rd sols of the mission, so the milestone fell right at the time of the shoot.

Back on Earth, the frames were stitched into a single image. The color was added as an artistic interpretation of the scene: blue stands for the morning panorama, yellow for the afternoon one. So these are not the real colors of Mars, but a device for clarity. NASA has assembled similar “postcards” before — for instance, from rover images in November 2021. The image was added to NASA’s photo journal on September 16, 2026.

The frame shows the rover’s deck: the cylindrical UHF antenna, through which data is relayed to orbiting spacecraft, and the ribbed radioisotope thermoelectric generator MMRTG — a nuclear power source — at the rear. Wheel tracks stretch into the distance. The camera looks downward, toward the crater floor, and the crater rim is barely discernible on the horizon.

Curiosity operates in the lower foothills of Mount Sharp, about 5 km high, inside Gale Crater. The rover was built by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which is managed by Caltech; JPL runs the mission on behalf of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate as part of the Mars Exploration Program.

Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech Public domain

Translation editor: Ловушкин А.