NASA orbiter spots Curiosity rover making tracks on Mars

• The Curiosity rover has been exploring Mars’ surface since 2012. The rover is currently on the way to its next science mission.
• Meanwhile, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has been circling Mars high overhead since 2006. It has caught the rover below on numerous occasions.
• But this is the first time the orbiter captured the rover while it was on the move. In the image, you can see the tracks laid out in the Martian soil behind the little rover.

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NASA published this original story on April 24, 2025. Edits by EarthSky.

NASA orbiter spots Curiosity rover making tracks on Mars

The image marks what may be the first time one of the agency’s Mars orbiters has captured the rover driving.

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has never been camera shy, having been seen in selfies and images taken from space. But on February 28 — the 4,466th Martian day, or sol, of the mission — Curiosity was captured in what is believed to be the first orbital image of the rover mid-drive across the red planet.

Taken by the HiRISE (High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) camera aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the image shows Curiosity as a dark speck at the front of a long trail of rover tracks. Likely to last for months before being erased by wind, the tracks span about 1,050 feet (320 meters). They represent roughly 11 drives starting on February 2 as Curiosity trucked along at a top speed of 0.1 mph (0.16 kph) from Gediz Vallis channel on the journey to its next science stop: a region with potential boxwork formations, possibly made by groundwater billions of years ago.

The next stop for Curiosity

How quickly the rover reaches the area depends on a number of factors, including how its software navigates the surface and how challenging the terrain is to climb. Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which leads Curiosity’s mission, work with scientists to plan each day’s trek.

Doug Ellison, Curiosity’s planning team chief at JPL, said:

By comparing the time HiRISE took the image to the rover’s commands for the day, we can see it was nearly done with a 69-foot [21 meters] drive.

Designed to ensure the best spatial resolution, HiRISE takes an image with the majority of the scene in black and white and a strip of color down the middle. While the camera has captured Curiosity in color before, this time the rover happened to fall within the black-and-white part of the image.

In the new image, Curiosity’s tracks lead to the base of a steep slope. The rover has ascended that slope since then, and it is expected to reach its new science location within a month or so.

Bottom line: A spacecraft orbiting Mars has caught the Curiosity rover in action as it drives to its next science mission.

Via NASA

Read more: Morning and afternoon on Mars, from Curiosity rover