NASA's Curiosity rover captured the morning and afternoon of Mars and published it in a new postcard.

The lighting at two times of the day is combined for a stunning view of the terrain left behind by the traveller.

After completing a major software update in April, NASA's Mars rover Curiosity took one last look at the "Marker Band Valley" before leaving it behind and captured a "postcard" of the scene.

The postcard is an artistic interpretation of the landscape, with colour superimposed on two black-and-white panoramas taken by Curiosity's navigation cameras. The images were taken on 8 April at 9:20 a.m. and 3:40 p.m. local Martian time, and when stitched together provide strikingly different lighting that highlights details in the scene. As with a similar postcard taken by Curiosity in November 2021, blue was added to the morning portions of the postcard and yellow to the afternoon portions.

The resulting image is striking. Curiosity is at the foot of Mount Sharp, 3 miles (5 kilometres) high in Gale Crater, where it has been exploring since landing in 2012. Beyond its tracks is the Marker Band Valley, a winding area in the "sulphate-bearing zone" where the rover discovered unexpected signs of an ancient lake. Further down (in the centre and just to the right) are two hills - Bolívar and Deepdale - through which Curiosity passed while exploring the Paraitepuy Pass.

"Anyone who has been to a national park knows that the landscape looks different in the morning than in the afternoon," said Curiosity engineer Doug Ellison of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, who planned and processed the images. "Capturing the two times of day provides darker shadows because the light comes from the left and right, like on a stage - but we rely on the Sun instead of the stage lights."

Adding to the depth of the shadows is the fact that at the time the images were taken, Curiosity's location was in winter, when dust in the air is low. "Mars' shadows are sharper and deeper when there is less dust, and softer when there is more dust," Ellison added.

The image looks behind the rover, providing a view of its three antennas and nuclear power source. The Radiation Assessment Detector, or RAD, visible as a white circle in the lower right of the image, helps scientists learn how to protect the first astronauts sent to Mars from radiation on the planet's surface.

Curiosity was built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California. JPL carries out the mission on behalf of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.