[Curiosities] NASA ROVER IMAGES UPSCALED TO 4K, GIVING MOST REALISTIC EXPERIENCE OF BEING ON RED PLANET

[Alcooliks ;x]

Pictures taken from the surface of Mars by Nasa’s rovers have been remastered into 4K resolution, giving an even clearer look at the surface of the Red Planet.

British YouTubers ElderFox Documentaries took stills sent from Nasa’s Curiosity, Spirit, and Opportunity rovers and ‘upscaled’ them, splicing them together into a video.

They have described it as ‘the most lifelike experience of being on Mars’.

Among the images are captures of the Meridiani Planum, a plain near Mars’ equator, where tracks from the Opportunity rover can be seen.

Depending on how many images are available, some panoramas have black sections because of a lack of suitable pictures.

While these could be avoided by zooming into the image, the YouTubers decided to have them remain so that the image resolution was not compromised.

All of the images are in the public domain and available on Nasa’s site.

Many of the images have been recoloured by Nasa, changing the hazy red colours of the Martian sky to bluer colours – similar to that on Earth.

That is done so geologists can better study rock formations.

One image of the Glen Torridon area (which is named after the Scottish hills) is “the largest mosaic ever put together”, the video claims, with 1.8 billion pixels.

It was made from over 1000 images sent from Curiosity between 24 November and 1 December 2019.

The Glen Torridon area has been theorised to contain a large amount of clay, which points towards Mars having once had water and increasing the likelihood that it holds life.

When the missions were launched, the cameras on board the rovers were the “height of technology”, according to the video’s narrator. Spirit and Opportunity were launched in 2003 and Curiosity was launched in 2011.

However, the rate at which the rovers can send data back to Earth is significantly lower than our connections at home, which makes it near-impossible to transmit video back to Nasa.