Post date: Aug 08, 2012 10:26:18 PM
NASA releases the first panoramic images taken by the science rover Curiosity from the surface of Mars.
NASA ANIMATION (AUGUST 8, 2012) (NASA) - NASA released a host of new photographs from the surface of Mars on Wednesday (August 8), taken by the science rover Curiosity. One of the latest images is a panoramic view of the Gale Crater where Curiosity landed on Sunday night.
NASA officials noted how similar the Martian landscape resembled Earth. "With Curiosity we landed something that actually looks very Mars-like, but it also looks Earth-like with those mountains in the background there, these deeply dissected pyramidal mountain ranges, and it just looks a lot like what you see out in the Mojave Desert, it's really cool, and so it kind of makes you feel at home," said John Grotzinger, the Project Scientist for Caltech.
NASA officials also assured reporters at a press conference in Pasadena, California that all of Curiosity's instruments are in good working order.
The $2.5 billion dollar project is NASA's first astrobiology mission since the Viking probes of the 1970s. It's primary mission is to search for evidence that Mars, the planet most similar to Earth, harbors, or once hosted, the key ingredients necessary for the evolution of microbial life.