NASA Captures First Orbital Image Of Mars Rover On The Move

NASA's Curiosity rover appears as a dark speck in this contrast-enhanced view captured by the Mars ... More Reconnaissance Orbiter.
NASA's Curiosity rover was trucking across the surface of Mars, heading to its next destination, when a faraway paparazzo snagged an image of the wheeled explorer on the move. The Mars rover photo didn't end up splashed across the cover of a celebrity gossip rag, but it did end up in NASA's social media feeds.
The camera-wielding culprit was NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, a spacecraft that has been in residence around Mars since 2006. The snapshot 'is believed to be the first orbital image of the rover mid-drive across the red planet,' NASA said in a statement on April 24.
MRO's High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera has sent back plenty of memorable images of the red planet's surface, including a woodpecker-like formation and an updated look at the infamous 'Face on Mars' that first attracted attention in the 1970s. MRO has also helped scientists understand the patterns of global dust storms on Mars.
The rover image comes from Feb. 28. Follow the squiggly line down from the upper right of the photo. The dark speck near the bottom at the end of the line is Curiosity. 'By comparing the time HiRISE took the image to the rover's commands for the day, we can see it was nearly done with a 69-foot drive,' said Curiosity's planning team chief Doug Ellison.
The tracks in the image show part of Curiosity's recent drive history. The line covers about 1,050 feet from 11 drives the rover made starting on Feb. 2. It's just one small piece of the car-sized rover's explorations. Curiosity landed on Mars in the Gale Crater in 2012. The rover has driven over 21 miles as it studies the slopes of Mount Sharp, the massive central mountain inside the crater.
Human-made machines are small objects compared to the wide landscapes of Mars. MRO has developed a side hobby of photographing these tricky subjects, like when it snapped a poignant farewell image of NASA's defunct InSight lander. InSight appeared as a dusty speck in the view.
Curiosity is NASA's oldest functioning rover on Mars. Its sibling rover Perseverance arrived in 2021. Curiosity is still making groundbreaking discoveries as it seeks to understand if Mars may have once been habitable for microbial life. Mars is an unfriendly place today, but it once had more water and there are hints it could have hosted life long ago, though more study is needed.
NASA's Curiosity Mars rover appears as a dark speck in this image captured from directly overhead by ... More the agency's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
MRO's HiRise camera has captured Curiosity before, notably in a color image from early 2024. 'The orbiter is equipped with a camera capable of viewing objects the size of a dinner table on the red planet's surface,' NASA said at the time.
While the new view captures a single moment in time for Curiosity, Mars fans can imagine the before and after and how the rover was on the move. Curiosity maxes out at about 0.1 mph for its top speed, so it's not exactly a race car. Rocky, sandy and rough terrain can slow it down. It's still a notable achievement for MRO to capture the rover in action like a sports photographer snapping a footballer rumbling down the field.

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