NASA has published a new view from its Curiosity rover looking back toward the floor of Gale Crater, with the crater's distant rim visible on the horizon. The rover took the image on Sept. 5, 2026, the 5,006th Martian day (sol) of its mission.
The picture comes shortly after a notable achievement. On Aug. 26 (Sol 4,996), Curiosity reached 1 kilometer of elevation, a milestone for a mission that has spent years working its way up the layered slopes of Mount Sharp at the center of the crater.
Each layer of rock the rover crosses holds a record of how Mars changed over time, including how its environment shifted from wetter to drier conditions. The backward look, released through NASA's Photojournal, shows how far Curiosity has come since it landed on the crater floor in 2012.
