Sol 1594: Left Navigation Camera, Vertical Projection

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity took 17 images in Gale Crater using its mast-mounted Left Navigation Camera (Navcam) to create this mosaic. The seam-corrected mosaic provides a vertical projection of the Martian surface near the rover, covering an area of 20 meters (north/south) by 20 meters (east/west). North is up in the image. This projection provides an overhead view, but introduces distortion for items not on the surface, such as large rocks and the rover itself. Curiosity took the images on January 30, 2017, Sol 1594 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission at drive 2574, site number 60. The local mean solar time for the image exposures was from 1 PM to 3 PM. Each Navcam image has a 45-degree field of view. CREDIT: NASA/JPL-Caltech