If you seek a dazzling new image for a MacBook Pro’s Retina screen, look no further…This week NASA released an ultra-high-resolution view of the frigid Martian landscape captured by the only rover currently operating on the red planet.
“The view provides … a spectacularly detailed view of the largest impact crater that we’ve driven to yet,” said planetary scientist Jim Bell of Arizona State University…
The solar-powered, golf-cart-sized rover, called Opportunity, wrapped up exploration of the half-mile-wide Victoria Crater in August 2008. It then rolled for the next three years to reach the 14-mile-wide Endeavour Crater….From Dec. 21, 2011 through May 8, 2012, NASA instructed the robot to stay put and take 817 images.
The space agency stitched those photos together to craft a near-wraparound image of Opportunity’s overwintering spot, a rocky outcrop near the 4-billion-year-old Endeavour Crater that scientists named “Greeley Haven.”
Click here to get to the catalog page for the photojournal. There are versions of this photo available up to 23K pixels wide!