Three NASA rovers on the surface of Mars have sent back stunning 4k images showing the red planet in more detail than has ever been seen before. These images have now been digitally put together to show a truly amazing video that human eyes have never previously experienced.
The 10-minute video was created by ElderFox Documentaries using images taken by the three rovers, named Spirit, Curiosity and Opportunity.
One of the videos was created using over 1,000 high quality images captured in late 2019 and shows some of the planet's most famous locations, such as the Santa Maria Crater, the Burns Cliff and the Marathon Valley Entrance. What is even more remarkable is that only the Curiosity rover is still fully operational, with Spirit and Opportunity able to send images back but unable to move after becoming stuck in mud.
The narrator of the video says:
"This is the first time Martian footage has been rendered in stunning, 4K resolution."
Perhaps what is most amazing is what the narrator says next, when he states that the evidence found indicates that Mars was at one time a watery planet, which also implies that it could very well have had life living upon it in the past. He goes on:
"The rover was exploring the area named 'Glen Torridon' which was theorized to contain large amounts of clay. Clay found on Mars signals the presence of water in the past. At this point, in 2020, the NASA rovers have found irrefutable evidence that Mars was once a watery planet."
The release of the video comes just as another rover has been sent to the planet, which sits 95 million km for Earth. The Perseverance rover launched successfully from Kennedy Space Centre on the 30th of July and is expected to reach its destination in February 2021. While it will be able to take images like the other three rovers, its primary goal will be to search for microbial life. That is, tiny living organisms living or fossilized on the Martian surface. If such things were found, and scientists do think it is a distinct possibility, it would be the first discovery of alien life forms.
Such a discovery would be one of the biggest leaps in human knowledge since the dawn of man and lead to great introspection as to our place in the universe.