Beyond Earth · Farstep pack

Gale Crater in 3D

Mars · the floor below Mount Sharp

Near the Martian equator, on the edge of the northern lowlands

Gale Crater holds a 5.5 km mound of layered rock, Mount Sharp, each layer a record of Mars's past climate. You stand on the crater floor among dark basalt dunes, on mudstones laid down in a lake that lasted for millions of years. A rover has been climbing those layers since it landed here in 2012.

Where: Near the Martian equator, on the edge of the northern lowlands
Central mound: Mount Sharp (Aeolis Mons), about 5.5 km of layered sediment
Old lake: Lasted millions of years, more than three billion years ago
Rover: Landed here in 2012

Walk Gale Crater in 3D

A real-time 3D model, shaped to published NASA and USGS elevation measurements. Loads 1.4 MB when you start.

Gale Crater

Walk it yourself. Works on this phone.

Part of the Beyond Earth pack: a one-time unlock in this browser.

Shaped to NASA and USGS elevation measurements · a 3D reconstruction, not a photograph

What you'll find in the walk

Gold markers in the scene open these cards.

Mount Sharp · Aeolis Mons
Known
A 5.5 km mound of layered sediment in the middle of the crater. Each layer is a page of Martian climate; the rover that landed here in 2012 has been reading them uphill ever since.
An ancient lakebed
Known
Mudstones on this floor formed in a lake that lasted for millions of years, more than three billion years ago. Clays and the right chemistry for life were found here; life itself has not been.
The dark dunes
Known
Basalt sand, not red dust, builds the dunes along the mound's foot. They move a metre or so a year in the thin wind.