NASA's Mars Curiosity rover sends color images back to Earth

PanARMENIAN.Net - NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity has transmitted some 300 low-resolution images illustrating its descent, NASA reported, according to RIA Novosti.

Curiosity successfully touched down on the Red Planet on Monday morning.

“The 297 color, low-resolution images provide a glimpse of the rover's descent into Gale Crater. They are a preview of the approximately 1,504 images of descent currently held in the rover's onboard memory,” NASA said.

“When put together in high resolution, the resulting video is expected to depict the rover's descent from the moment the entry system's heat shield is released through touchdown,” the agency said.

The images are 192 by 144 pixel thumbnails. In the next few months, full-frame 1,600 by 1,200 pixel images are expected to “provide the most complete and dramatic imagery of a planetary landing in the history of exploration,” according to NASA.

Curiosity, the biggest and the most scientifically complex Mars rover, will gradually turn on its scientific equipment to carry out geological and geo-chemical research, to study the planet’s atmosphere and climate, and to search for water and organic substances. Its findings will help to determine whether Mars was ever a habitable planet and whether it has any places suitable for habitation now.

It is NASA's first Mars landing since the Spirit and Opportunity rovers touched down on the Red Planet in 2004.

A Russian neutron detector onboard NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity, designed to search for any water that might be bound into shallow underground minerals along the rover's path, will be activated within three to four days, a Russian scientist said on Monday.