NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover used its Mastcam-Z imaging system to capture this 360-degree panorama of “Van Zyl Overlook,” where the rover was parked as the Ingenuity helicopter performed its first flights. The 2.4 billion-pixel panorama is made up of 992 individual images stitched together. The images were taken between April 15 and 26, 2021, or the 53rd and 64th Martian days, or sols, of the mission.

The image of the rover in this panorama was taken on an earlier date, March 20, 2021, the 31st sol of the mission. It was added to give a better impression of scale and perspective from the rover’s point of view. Imaging coverage of the sky has also been digitally smoothed and expanded based on the actual sky color observed as the panorama was being acquired on Mars. A few small patches of near-field sand had been covered by parts of Perseverance when the right-eye Mastcam-Z images were taken; those gaps were filled with images of the same sandy patches taken by the Mastcam-Z left-eye camera at the same time, or from the earlier Navcam images.

The audio recording was made on Feb. 22, 2021. Rover background sounds have been removed.

[NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory]