Curiosity lands on Mars
NASA's seventh landing on Mars is being called an engineering tour de force, using never-before-tried acrobatics with a Hollywood-style finish.
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One of the first images
In this photo released by NASA's JPL, this is one of the first images taken by NASA's Curiosity rover, which landed on Mars the evening of Aug. 5 PDT. It was taken with a "fisheye" wide-angle lens on the left "eye" of a stereo pair of Hazard-Avoidance cameras on the left-rear side of the rover. The image is one-half of full resolution. The clear dust cover that protected the camera during landing has been sprung open. Part of the spring that released the dust cover can be seen at the bottom right, near the rover's wheel. On the top left, part of the rover's power supply is visible. Some dust appears on the lens even with the dust cover off. The cameras are looking directly into the sun, so the top of the image is saturated. The lines across the top are an artifact called "blooming" that occurs in the camera's detector because of the saturation. As planned, the rover's early engineering images are lower resolution. Larger color images from other cameras are expected later in the week when the rover's mast, carrying high-resolution cameras, is deployed.
Credit: AP Photo/NASA/JPL-Caltech
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