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Curiosity Rover HiRISE images
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August 6, 2012
Curiosity was captured by the orbiter's HiRISE camera for the first time before it even landed. When this image was taken, the rover still had one minute left in the "seven minutes of terror," a colloquial term used by NASA to describe the harrowing landing process.
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August 14, 2012
Days later, Curiosity was spotted at the Bradbury landing site in Gale Crater. The area around it was darkened by the blast of the rover's descent stage. This image is actually just a section of a massive mosaic made by the HiRISE team at the University of Arizona that shows the surface around Curiosity's landing site.
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August 31, 2012
The HiRISE camera helped tell the story of how well the complicated landing plan was executed. Released weeks after it landed, this image shows where the rover's heat shield, descent stage, parachute, and various debris came to rest.
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September 6, 2012
Just a month after the rover landed, the orbiter captured its metaphorical first steps. The rover team drove Curiosity forward about eight feet, rotated it 120 degrees, and then drove it about 15 feet in reverse. Since then, Curiosity has traversed more than five miles of Martian terrain.
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October 4, 2012
The images from the HiRISE camera are used to map out Curiosity's travels. This one details the two-month route to the rover's initial science destination, where it drilled into Martian soil for the first time.
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October 10, 2012
Two months after Curiosity's landing the HiRISE team released some 3D stereo anaglyph images, which are viewable with traditional red/blue glasses.
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April 3, 2013
This GIF shows Curiosity's descent stage and parachute. It was is made from HiRISE images taken over the span of five months, and shows how the parachute's position has changed multiple times because of the Martian wind.
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July 24, 2013
After 11 months on Mars, Curiosity can be seen almost a mile from the Bradbury landing site.
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January 9, 2014
Curiosity has traveled across some rough terrain, as is evidenced in this image from early 2014. In fact, the terrain was so troublesome at times that many of its wheels were heavily damaged, so the team back on Earth planned different routes in order to preserve them. In this image the rover can be seen in the lower left corner, and you can trace its tracks all the way to the top right.
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April 16, 2014
Some of the mission's most important science has been done here at "the Kimberley" location. Careful navigation through the multi-layered area of the Martian surface resulted in a number of twists and turns, evidenced by the donuts left in the tracks made by the SUV-sized rover.
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July 8, 2014
Curiosity was spotted crossing the edge of its "landing ellipse" almost two years into its journey. The ellipse is the four mile by 12 mile area in which the rover was projected to land. It faces more dangerous terrain outside of the ellipse as it heads toward Mars' Mount Sharp.
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February 4, 2015
Curiosity is currently exploring the diverse "Pahrump Hills" area of Gale Crater. In its time here the rover has found evidence of organic matter and has also provided team scientists with observations that indicate Gale Crater was once a massive lake.
