What Lies Behind Curiosity

This is the first image taken by NASA's Curiosity rover, which landed on Mars the evening of Aug. 5 PDT (morning of Aug. 6 EDT). It was taken through a "fisheye" wide-angle lens on one of the rover's rear left Hazard-Avoidance cameras at one-quarter of full resolution. The camera is the left eye of a stereo pair positioned at the back left, or port, side of the rover.

The clear dust cover on the camera is still on in this view, and dust can be seen around its edge, along with three cover fasteners. One of the rover's wheels is in the lower right corner.

As planned, the rover's early engineering images are lower resolution. Larger color images are expected later in the week when the rover's mast, carrying high-resolution cameras, is deployed. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech