--- title: Stunning New Photo Shows Mars' Rugged Terrain description: A stunning, newly released photo snapped by a camera on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has captured the red planet’s rugged terrain. canonical: https://time.com/4310466/mars-rugged-terrain-curiosity-rover/ author: Melissa Chan article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-04-27T23:37:11.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-31T09:33:37.582Z article:section: Science og:title: This Stunning New Photo Shows Mars' Rugged Terrain og:description: The Curiosity rover has tamed one of the planet's toughest areas og:url: https://time.com/4310466/mars-rugged-terrain-curiosity-rover/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd4463f5359d9131c/69889102bc6cfc417a3dcc34/mars-rover.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: mars-rover og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: This Stunning New Photo Shows Mars' Rugged Terrain twitter:description: The Curiosity rover has tamed one of the planet's toughest areas twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd4463f5359d9131c/69889102bc6cfc417a3dcc34/mars-rover.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # This Stunning New Photo Shows Mars' Rugged Terrain  by [Melissa Chan](/author/melissa-chan/)  ## Melissa Chan Apr 27, 2016 11:37 PM CUT  NASA  by [Melissa Chan](/author/melissa-chan/)  ## Melissa Chan Apr 27, 2016 11:37 PM CUT A stunning, [newly released photo](http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6452&utm%5Fsource=iContact&utm%5Fmedium=email&utm%5Fcampaign=NASAJPL&utm%5Fcontent=msl20160427 "undefined") snapped by a camera on NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has captured the red planet’s rugged terrain. The 360-degree panorama shows the surface of Mars’ “Naukluft Plateau,” which is part of the planet’s most rugged and difficult-to-navigate stretch of land, NASA said. The space agency on Wednesday said the rover, which has been on Mars for at least 44 months, encountered the terrain in early March after spending several weeks investigating sand dunes. It found that the plateau’s sandstone bedrock has been “carved by eons of wind erosion into ridges and knobs,” according to NASA. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4310466/mars-rugged-terrain-curiosity-rover/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4310466/mars-rugged-terrain-curiosity-rover/"},"headline":"This Stunning New Photo Shows Mars' Rugged Terrain","datePublished":"2016-04-27T23:37:11.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-31T09:33:37.582Z","description":"The Curiosity rover has tamed one of the planet's toughest areas","url":"https://time.com/4310466/mars-rugged-terrain-curiosity-rover/","keywords":["Space"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd4463f5359d9131c/69889102bc6cfc417a3dcc34/mars-rover.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Melissa Chan","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/melissa-chan/"}],"articleSection":"Science","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd4463f5359d9131c/69889102bc6cfc417a3dcc34/mars-rover.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"mars-rover","caption":"","creditText":"NASA","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/science/","name":"Science"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/space/","name":"Space"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4310466/mars-rugged-terrain-curiosity-rover/","name":"This Stunning New Photo Shows Mars' Rugged Terrain"}}]}] ```