Mars Looks A Lot Like The US Southwest

Take a look at the latest 360-degree panorama from Mars Curiosity rover. You will imagine that you're looking not at unknown habitats, but dry, rocky desert regions that transport you straight to the US Southwest. It is only when you catch glimpses of a huge machine, that you realise this is the Red Planet, not our own.

Check out NASA's YouTube video, and you can explore the rugged environment of the Martian Murray Buttes.Martian landscapes are rugged due to the rock and soil layers, and also show you the fish and spoon formations.

"The buttes and mesas are capped with rock that is relatively resistant to wind erosion," NASA says. Lakebed deposits from the rover were made up of flat, cracked ground, just like the earth. Something similar can be found right here on Earth.

The rock "helps preserve these monumental remnants of a layer that formerly more fully covered the underlying layer that the rover is now driving on," says NASA.

Curiosity shot the images on August 5 and released the interactive video Friday. You can see that the dark mesa to the left of the rover's arm is about 200 feet (60 meters) wide.

However, this is not the first time we see these shots. Since 2012, Curiosity was installed on the Red Planet, which has made us get quite a look at the planet.

NASA released a 360-degree panorama that look like sand castles from other worlds. Last April, we could even see inside a plateau within a huge crater.

Mars may be far away---but it does look a lot like home too!