First 360-Degree Panorama From NASA's Curiosity  Mars Rover
Remarkable image sets from NASA's  Curiosity rover and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter are continuing to develop the  story of Curiosity's landing and first days on Mars.
PASADENA, Calif. -- Remarkable image sets from NASA's  Curiosity rover and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter are continuing to develop the  story of Curiosity's landing and first days on Mars.The images from Curiosity's just-activated navigation  cameras, or Navcams, include the rover's first self-portrait, looking down at its  deck from above. Another Navcam image set, in lower-resolution thumbnails, is  the first 360-degree view of Curiosity's new home in Gale Crater. Also  downlinked were two, higher-resolution Navcams providing the most detailed  depiction to date of the surface adjacent to the rover."These Navcam images indicate that our powered  descent stage did more than give us a great ride, it gave our science team an  amazing freebie," said John Grotzinger, project scientist for the mission  from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "The thrust from  the rockets actually dug a one-and-a-half-foot-long [0.5-meter] trench in the  surface. It appears we can see Martian bedrock on the bottom. Its depth below  the surface is valuable data we can use going forward."Another image set, courtesy of the Context Camera,  or CTX, aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has pinpointed the final  resting spots of the six, 55-pound (25-kilogram) entry ballast masses. The  tungsten masses impacted the Martian surface at a high speed of about 7.5 miles  (12 kilometers) from Curiosity's landing location.Curiosity's latest images are available at:http://1.usa.gov/MfiyD0.Wednesday, the team deployed the 3.6 foot-tall (1.1-meter)  camera mast, activated and gathered surface radiation data from the rover's  Radiation Assessment Detector and concluded testing of the rover's high-gain  antenna.Curiosity carries 10 science instruments with a total mass 15 times as  large as the science payloads on NASA's Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity.  Some of the tools, such as a laser-firing instrument for checking rocks'  elemental composition from a distance, are the first of their kind on Mars.  Curiosity will use a drill and scoop, which are located at the end of its  robotic arm, to gather soil and powdered samples of rock interiors, then sieve  and parcel out these samples into the rover's analytical laboratory  instruments.To handle this science toolkit, Curiosity is twice as long and five  times as heavy as Spirit or Opportunity. The Gale Crater landing site places  the rover within driving distance of layers of the crater's interior mountain.  Observations from orbit have identified clay and sulfate minerals in the lower  layers, indicating a wet history.The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's High  Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera is operated by the University of Arizona in  Tucson. The instrument was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in  Boulder, Colo. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Exploration Rover  projects are managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.  The rover was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. JPL is a division of  the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Lockheed Martin Space  Systems in Denver built the orbiter.For more about NASA's Curiosity mission, visit:http://www.nasa.gov/marsandhttp://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/msl.Follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at:http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosityandhttp://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity.For more about NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, visit:http://www.nasa.gov/mro.