Nasa's Curiosity rover captures highest-resolution Martian panorama yet

The rover's Mast Camera, or Mastcam, used its telephoto lens to produce the panorama; meanwhile, it relied on its medium-angle lens to produce a lower-resolution, nearly 650-million-pixel panorama that includes the rover's deck and robotic arm, says a Nasa release.

Curiosity also captured a 650-million-pixel panorama that features the rover itself.

Both panoramas showcase "Glen Torridon," a region on the side of Mount Sharp that Curiosity is exploring. They were taken between 24 November and 1 December, when the mission team was out for the Thanksgiving holiday. Sitting still with few tasks to do while awaiting the team to return and provide its next commands, the rover had a rare chance to image its surroundings from the same vantage point several days in a row. 

It required more than 6 1/2 hours over the four days for Curiosity to capture the individual shots. Mastcam operators programmed the complex task list, which included pointing the rover's mast and making sure the images were in focus. To ensure consistent lighting, they confined imaging to between noon and 2 p.m. local Mars time each day.

"While many on our team were at home enjoying turkey, Curiosity produced this feast for the eyes," said Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity's project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which leads the Curiosity rover mission. "This is the first time during the mission we've dedicated our operations to a stereo 360-degree panorama." 

In 2013, Curiosity produced a 1.3-billion-pixel panorama using both Mastcam cameras; its black-and-white Navigation Cameras, or Navcams, provided images of the rover itself. Imaging specialists carefully assemble Mars panoramas by creating mosaics composed of individual pictures and blending their edges to create a seamless look.

Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego built and operates Curiosity's Mastcam. JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, manages the project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington and built the Navigation Cameras and the rover.

Meanwhile, an international team of astrobiologists analysing Martian data sent by Curiosity, believe that the organic molecules discovered by Curiosity rover could be evidence of life on Mars.

In a paper published in the journal Astrobiology, the team argues that the presence of “thiophenes,” which are special compounds found in coal, crude oil and white truffles back on Earth, could be a sign of ancient life on the Red Planet.

“We identified several biological pathways for thiophenes that seem more likely than chemical ones, but we still need proof,” Washington State University astrobiologist and lead author Dirk Schulze-Makuch said in a statement.

The team, however, isn’t jumping to any conclusions just yet.

“If you find thiophenes on Earth, then you would think they are biological, but on Mars, of course, the bar to prove that has to be quite a bit higher,” Shulze-Makuch added.

While thiophenes are made up of two bio-essential elements, carbon and sulfur, it’s still very possible they could’ve been created during meteor impacts that heat sulfates to high temperatures — a possible explanation the researchers are also considering. 

If the compounds were indeed a sign of life, they could’ve been the result of bacteria some three billion years ago breaking down sulfates — or alternatively could have been broken down by the bacteria.

But, again, it’s far too early to draw conclusions.

The Curiosity rover analyzes compounds by breaking them down into fragments. The upcoming European Space Agency’s Rosalind Franklin rover, however, could fill in the gaps with its Mars Organic Molecule Analyzer (MOMA), which doesn’t use the same destructive technique as Curiosity.