The cloudy mid-afternoon panorama above was taken on 5 August 2025, corresponding to early-mid summer in the Jezero region.
The late-morning panorama below, facing the same direction, was taken in late December 2024, corresponding to early spring at Jezero:
Putting aside the different cameras and image processing techniques used for each panorama, the differences are dramatic. The skies of early spring are dull, dusty and uniform - with no clouds visible whatsoever.
Comparing the same features along the horizon, the tallest foreground hill at far right is about 15 km away, while the two small mountains in the distant background are about 50-60 km away (in this comparison the spring landscape is at the top, the summer vista below):
The distant mountains are barely hints in the springtime view! Between the glowing, wispy summer clouds, and the dust devils that swarm across this landscape in the middle of the day, I think I know when I’d like to visit this place…
Panorama credits:
Summer clouds - Simeon Schmauß
Dusty spring landscape - Neville Thompson
This really challenges my concept of what seasons are about.
How so?
vegetation, for one
Often I’ve wondered: what would the life of a Martian farmer be like? Build a dome over some modest-sized crater - well-shielded from the radiation, of course - and try to make a go of it using Earth seed stock.
There’s a severe lack of organic matter, nitrogen and so on, but the image of green things growing under a dome in a landscape like this really stays in my head. Would vegetation follow Martian or Earthly seasons? The NASA Planetary Protection people would probably kill me, of course, and even I agree: Mars is not our plaything, we should respect it. It still sounds so appealing, though…
