Mars rover sends galactic postcard home

After nearly 14 years on another planet, a robot has sent a postcard back to Earth.

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover took two panoramas of the Martian landscape, which earthlings then merged and colourized to create an otherworldly postcard, the agency said in a Wednesday press release.

Curiosity took the panoramas from the “Chocolatal” ridge using its black and white cameras, which help it navigate on Mars. The first photo was taken in the morning on Aug. 30, Curiosity’s 5,000th day on Mars, while the second was on the evening of Sept. 2.

The pictures were sent back to Earth and combined to create what NASA called an “artistic interpretation of the scene.” The blue portions of the panorama are from the Aug. 30 photo, and the yellow from the Sept. 2 picture.

The robot was designed and built at the California Institute of Technology’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.