Wendi Laurence

ALT Two panoramas taken in the morning and afternoon on Mars are combined to create a color-enhanced landscape image. Both panoramas of the area, known as "Marker Band Valley," were taken by the Curiosity Mars rover's navigation cameras. The detailed photo shows yellow coloring in the sky to mark the afternoon hours and it transitions to a blue color to indicate the morning color. The taupe-colored landscape shows a large, rocky hill to the right and smaller rocky hills in the distance toward the center and out into the horizon. To the left is a rocky outcrop and as we get closer to the foreground the area shows rover tracks along the sandy floor. To the bottom-right corner, the backend of the off-white, dusty rover is shown. Part of the rover's wheel can be seen as well as three of its antennas. The Radiation Assessment Detector, or RAD instrument, appears as a white circle in the lower right portion on the back of the rover.

ALT A black-and-white square image shows the wheels of the Curiosity rover as it navigates a tricky trail on Mars. The wheels of the rover take up a big portion of the image toward the right and part of the wheel connections are shown with wires and zip-ties. To the right, the Martian surface is very sandy with ripples and large rocks. One of Curiosity's wheels is against a big rock and behind the rover are tracks deep in the sand, showing the slippery terrain it had to deal with.

ALT This composite image shows Curiosity's view of its Martian workspace. A large rock is centered between shadows the rover cast onto the surface. Curiosity's "head" is to the right of the rock, and its arm is to the left. The rock itself is roughly a foot in diameter and mostly round, with divots across its rough surface. It is gray/silver. Mars dirt has settled on portions of it. In the rest of the image, the light red Martian surface is sprinkled with smaller rocks and pebbles.