NASA lands Curiosity rover on Mars

41 photos

Our latest Curiosity rover coverage will now be posted in a new gallery, which will continue to grow with NASA’s latest photos of Mars. The images below cover Curiosity’s historic landing and NASA’s following press briefing.


On August 5, 2012 at 10:31 p.m. PDT, the world witnessed NASA’s rover landing on the Marian surface marking the next exciting phase for the $2.5 billion (USD) Mars Science Laboratory and Curiosity rover mission. The mobile lab is equipped with nuclear-powered capabilities to vaporize rocks, ingest soil, and determine whether Mars was ever inhabited by smaller forms of life. For updates follow @MarsCuriosity on Twitter.

Curiosity sends back higher resolution color images of Mars

MORE: Curiosity rover seen by HiRISE camera on orbiting Martian satellite


Related reading: 10 out of this world science fiction books about Mars; Curiosity’s mysterious Mars photo stirs speculation

NASA rover Curiosity makes historic Mars landing, beams back photos
Irene Klotz Reuters
12:17 p.m. EDT, August 8, 2012

PASADENA, California (Reuters) – NASA’s newly landed Mars science rover Curiosity snapped the first color image of its surroundings while an orbiting sister probe photographed litter left behind during the rover’s daring do-or-die descent to the surface, scientists said Tuesday.

Curiosity’s color image, taken with a dust cover still on the camera lens, shows the north wall and rim of Gale Crater, a vast basin where the nuclear-powered, six-wheeled rover touched down Sunday night after flying through space for more than eight months.

The picture proved that one of the rover’s key instruments, a camera known as the Mars Hand Lens Imager, or MAHLI, was in good working order affixed to the end of Curiosity robot arm.

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