NASA's Curiosity rover lands on Mars (30 images)

This color image from NASA's Curiosity rover shows part of the wall of Gale Crater, the location on Mars where the rover landed. The images in this mosaic were acquired by the 34-millimeter MastCam over about an hour of time on August 9, 2012 EDT, each at 1,200 by 1,200 pixels in size. UPI/NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Gale Crater's Mount Sharp on Mars is seen on the upper left of this image which is a portion of the first color 360-degree panorama from NASA's Curiosity rover, made up of thumbnails. Blast marks from the rover's descent stage are in the foreground. UPI/NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

This mosaic, whose images were obtained by NASA's Curiosity rover's navigation cameras on August 8, EDT, shows part of the left side of the rover and two blast marks from the descent stage's rocket engines. Several small bits of rock and soil, which were made airborne by the rocket engines, are visible on the rover's top deck. UPI/NASA/JPL-Caltech

This color image from NASA's Curiosity rover shows an area excavated by the blast of the Mars Science Laboratory's descent stage rocket engines. This is part of a larger, high-resolution color mosaic made from images obtained by Curiosity's Mast Camera on August 9, 2012 EDT. Shown in the inset in the figure are pebbles up to 1.25 inches (about 3 centimeters) across (upper two arrows) and a larger clast 4 inches (11.5 centimeters) long protruding up by about 2 inches (10 centimeters) from the layer in which it is embedded. UPI/NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS