US Space agency NASA‘s ‘Curiosity rover, which has recently completed its nine years on Mars, has sent new stunning panorama shots from the red planet to celebrate nine years of exploration. The space agency also released a video of its whereabouts and its exploration. 

The video shows the veiny texture of the sulfate materials that it is currently exploring, around the rover. Curiosity also collected a sample from this region. Here is the video.

Curiosity touched down in Gale Crater of Mars on August 5, 2012. The landing happened with the help of an impressive rocket that was sled to land gently on the planet. NASA’s other rover, Pereseverence to Mars over eight and a half years later, used the same technique to begin its mission in Jezero Crater.

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Curiosity, however, began its investigation on the floor of the crater but has spent most of the last nine years climbing higher on the crater’s central peak, known as Mount Sharp, says the video.

According to NASA, Curiosity can see all the way to the rim of crater, which is some 20 miles away from its presence with its perch 1,500 feet above the landing site. This is mainly due to the fact that it is currently winter on Mars, which means cleaner and less dusty air that facilitates clearer shots.

A smoother clay-bearing mountain-like deposit can be seen when you look down the mountainside on one side of the panorama. This is what Curiosity has spent most of its mission analysing.

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According to NASA, those materials probably have a watery past, but the robot is now transitioning to a region defined by salty minerals called sulfates. The samples sent from that region will help scientists to understand how and why Mars dried up in the distant past. Scientists believe that the red planet may have had conditions necessary to foster the development of life.

Curiosity rover has traveled 16 miles (26 kilometers) since its landing and is still going.  In the coming months, Curiosity is expected to head towards Rafael Navarro Mountain, a sleek valley between an outcropping and a hill the size of a four-story building. These discoveries will feed into the ongoing Perseverance mission, which is just getting underway in another part of the red planet.