After months and months of image collection, NASA has released what is the best image of Mars yet. If you can’t get there this week, this is the next best thing. Described by Nasa as the ‘Greeley Panorama’ from the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity, the first image documents the fifth Martian Winter of the mission.

The image shows new rover tracks and an old impact crater, known as the Endeavour Crater, which can be seen just below the horizon in the right half of the picture. It spans 22 kilometres in diameter. The rover’s solar panels and deck can be seen in the foreground. For the whole “omg I’m on Mars effect” see the full image HERE, it really is worth it.

It was assembled from 817 component images taken between Dec. 21, 2011, and May 8, 2012.  Jim Bell of Arizona State University, Tempe, Pancam lead scientist said:

The view provides rich geologic context for the detailed chemical and mineral work that the team did at Greeley Haven over the rover’s fifth Martian winter, as well as a spectacularly detailed view of the largest impact crater that we’ve driven to yet.

Opportunity and its twin, Spirit, landed on Mars in January 2004 for missions originally planned to last for three months. NASA’s next-generation Mars rover, Curiosity, is on course for landing on Mars next month.

NASA’s Curiosity rover, formally known as the Mars Science Laboratory but nicknamed a “dream machine” by NASA scientists, blasted off from Florida in November and is expected to land in early August. It is the most advanced machine ever built with the aim of roaming the surface of Earth’s nearest neighbour. The rover cost $2.5 billion to construct and launch, carries its own rock-analysing lab and aims to hunt for signs that life once existed there.

[Source: NASA]