Curiosity panorama reveals Mount Sharp yardang formations

NASA has released a six-image panorama captured by its Curiosity rover showing dawn light on the yardang formations along Mount Sharp, a geological feature scientists hope to examine directly as they investigate how it formed. Curiosity’s Mastcam took the images on August 11, 2026, about an hour after sunrise, during the rover’s 4,982nd Martian day. The pictures were stitched together after transmission to Earth. NASA processed the panorama without the white balancing used for most Mastcam images, preserving the scene’s early-morning colors. The view shows blue tones in the foreground and sunlight on jagged ridges in the distance. The yardangs are part of a layer extending about 16 kilometres across the northwestern reaches of Mount Sharp, which rises about 5 kilometres above its surroundings. Curiosity has been climbing the mountain since 2014. The layer is thought to date to about 3 billion years ago, but its composition and formation remain uncertain. Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity’s project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said the layer appears out of place among Mount Sharp’s other geological layers.