<b>Photos</b>: See Curiosity’s images from Mars
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity landed on the Red Planet in August 2012, and has been sending back a constant stream of images ever since.
Some of these images are dazzling -- wide dusty panoramas with Curiosity’s ultimate destination, Mount Sharp, looming in the background. Others are less visually exciting for regular folks, but meaningful for scientists -- like close-up images of a rock whose rounded edges were likely created by the flow of water that suggest the planet was once home to flowing rivers.
In the days just after Curiosity landed, even the most mundane image that the rover sent back was thrilling. Curiosity’s first picture -- a gray and low-res image of its shadow on the rocky Martian surface, taken as a test -- was posted on news sites around the world. After all, this machine had spent 8 1/2 months traveling and was now sending images back to Earth from a planet more than 100 million miles away.
We’ve collected some of our favorite photos that Curiosity has taken in the time it has spent on Mars, including some flattering self-portraits.
The images are presented in reverse chronological order, and we will update the gallery as new images, both beautiful and scientifically relevant, are taken and released.
