Facebook is set to debut live 360° video on 13 December as it teams up with National Geographic to stream live from the Mars Desert Research Station facility in Utah.

Through Facebook: Live 360, Facebook users around the world will be able to join seven space scientists in the facility from 1200 PT/ 1500 ET (2000 GMT). For 80 days, these scientists have lived completely isolated from humanity in an artificial Martian landscape – to replicate life on Mars. The 360° live video will show the scientists emerging from their pods and give watchers a behind the scenes look at the living quarters, as well as having a live Q&A.

Facebook: Live 360 will not be available to all for the time being, however. Facebook plan to enable more pages to use the function, via the Live API, in the coming months and hope to roll it out more broadly at some point in 2017.

Facebook’s delve into live 360° video has coincided with Instagram making its live video features available in the US – after initially releasing Live Stories last month. This will be rolled out in updates to the Instagram app in the coming days.