Curiosity's Rear View, Annotated . photonado

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Curiosity's Rear View, Annotated

This is a labeled version of one of the first images taken by a rear Hazard-Avoidance camera on NASA's Curiosity rover, which landed on Mars the evening of Aug. 5 PDT (morning of Aug. 6 EDT). The image shows a fin on the radioisotope thermoelectric generator (the rover's power source), the rear left wheel and a spring that released the dust cover on the Hazard-Avoidance camera.It was taken through a "fisheye" wide-angle lens. The unlabeled version is available at PIA15973 . It is one-half of full resolution. Part of the rim of Gale Crater, which is a feature the size of Connecticut and Rhode Island combined, can be seen at the upper right of the image. As planned, the rover's early engineering images are low resolution.

Image credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Image released by NASA on 2012-08-06 as catalog id PIA15982