For apparently the first time ever, the Curiosity rover on Mars has been spotted mid-drive from orbit, a speck of human presence on the otherwise barren and grayscale landscape.
The image, taken on February 28, 2025 (Sol 4,466—a leap day here on Earth!), shows Curiosity as a tiny dark blot at the end of a rover track trail that stretches about 1,050 feet (320 meters) across the Martian surface. It’s the orbital equivalent of a candid camera, courtesy of the HiRISE (High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) camera aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
While HiRISE has snapped Curiosity before, this marks the first time we’ve seen it mid-stride—erm, roll—caught in the process of completing a 69-foot (21-meter) drive—a fact confirmed by matching timestamps with the rover’s command logs. Curiosity’s top speed? A blistering 0.1 mph (0.16 kilometers per hour). No, it won’t win any races—at least compared to vehicles on Earth—but the rover is steady, hardy, and unbothered by the absence of gas stations.
The tracks, crunched into the Martian terrain over 11 separate drives made since February 2, were dug as Curiosity made its way from the planet’s Gediz Vallis channel toward its next science target: a rocky region that may feature boxwork formations, possibly shaped by groundwater in the planet’s ancient past.
The new image shows the rover at the base of a steep slope—one it’s since ascended en route to that rocky location. How long it will take Curiosity to arrive depends on the terrain ahead, the rover’s navigation software, and the regularly updated plans from NASA engineers, who steer the rover and work with scientists to prioritize its targets.
Interestingly, HiRISE usually captures images with a strip of color down the center, but Curiosity landed in the camera’s black-and-white zone this time. So alas—no full-color Martian glamour shot—but still, it’s a stunner. A lonely speck, chugging up an alien slope, caught in the act from more than 150 miles (241 km) overhead.
