Can you find the Curiosity rover in this photo?

The HiRISE camera caught a picture of the rover as it made its way across Mars.
By | Published: June 21, 2017 | Last updated on May 18, 2023
PIA2171016
Can you spot the blue dot that is the Curiosity rover?
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

While monitoring Mars on June 5, 2017, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter snapped a picture that included the Curiosity rover.

The 10-foot long, 9-foot wide (3 meters long, 2.8 meters wide) rover was between Mount Sharp and “Vera Rubin Ridge” when the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera took the picture.

The filter on the HiRISE, which is meant to enhance colors to help scientists see things the human eye can’t naturally pick up, and the contrasting tan rocks makes the rover appear bluer than it really is.

Curiosity landed on Mars August 5, 2012 to learn more about the possibility of microbial life on the Red Planet and to study the terrain and the 96-mile wide, 3-mile high Gale Crater. The HiRISE captures pictures of Curiosity around every three months while monitoring the area for erosion or dune migration.