Composite Panorama of Mars

NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover “Spirit” successfully landed on Mars earlier today, January 4.

The NASA web site provided a set of raw images along with a few press-friendly photographs, and I wanted to see what a composite panorama would look like.

Unretouched panorama

Of 56 images taken by Spirit’s navigation camera, 26 show the surrounding landscape and sky. Only 13 of those images were required to make the 360° panorama below (click for a larger view):

Retouched panorama

The panorama was then retouched to reduce the dark halo around each photo, flatten the horizon, and balance the overall tone:

Update: False color panorama

On January 6, NASA released Spirit’s first color photograph, shown here overlaid on the retouched panorama:

False color was then added to the rest of the panorama:

Enjoy!

Credits

Original images provided by the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Mars Exploration Rover Mission.