NASA releases stunning footage from Mars: Light illuminates rocky peaks VIDEO

The Curiosity rover landed on Mars in 2012, in Gale Crater near the planet’s equator. Since 2014, it has been climbing Mount Sharp, a roughly five-kilometer-high mountain rising from the crater floor, Reuters reports.

The footage was captured by the Mastcam camera about an hour after sunrise. In the distance, cliffs and rocky ridges shaped by the wind can be seen.

“The bright rocky peaks in the distance belong to a layer of rock that looks quite different from all the layers the rover has encountered so far. We believe it was once made up of sediment carried by the wind, perhaps sand, or even ash deposited in the crater by nearby volcanic activity,” said Ashwin Vasavada, a scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory responsible for the Curiosity mission.

According to Vasavada, after the sediment hardened into rock, wind shaped its surface over millions of years into ridges known as yardangs.

The layer is believed to have formed around three billion years ago and stretches for roughly 16 kilometers along the northwestern part of Mount Sharp.

Vasavada said the layer most likely does not form part of the continuous sequence of strata that make up Mount Sharp, but instead formed somewhat later, above a geological discontinuity — a period during which earlier layers eroded before new material was deposited on top of them.

During its gradual ascent of the mountain, the rover has climbed more than one kilometer in elevation, the highest altitude any rover has reached on Mars so far, NASA said.

Mount Sharp consists of layers of rock that preserve evidence of different periods in Mars’ geological history.

By studying these layers, scientists have learned more about the lakes and streams that once covered this part of the planet, when Mars was warmer and wetter than it is today.

NASA hopes Curiosity will reach the yardang layer in 2027 or 2028, when its instruments will study its geological composition in detail.

The Curiosity rover is studying the geology and climate of Mars and seeking to determine whether conditions suitable for microbial life ever existed on the planet.

It is one of two NASA rovers currently exploring Mars, while the Perseverance rover is traveling along the rim of Jezero Crater in the planet’s northern hemisphere.

Vasavada described the new footage as a scene that reminds him of traveling through Monument Valley in the U.S. state of Arizona, but noted that the orange sky and bluish hues of the sunrise clearly show that it is Mars.