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A seven-minute VR trip to Gale Crater on Mars

Prof Sanjeev Gupta puts a VR headset on Kevin Fong and transports him to the middle of Gale Crater on Mars. Stunning barren mountains, fields of black rippled sand dunes and remarkable geological discoveries about the planet’s past are all around him, virtually. As a member of NASA’s Curiosity rover mission, Professor Gupta uses the Hololens in conjunction with software developed by the space agency and Microsoft. The OnSight system immerses wearers in the Martian landscape from the perspective of the Curiosity robot’s cameras, enabling Professor Gupta to do geological fieldwork on Mars from his office at Imperial College, London.

The images which accompany the conversation are stills taken by the Curiosity rover. Credit: NASA/JPL.

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Duration:

7 minutes