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Mars Curiosity rover sends amazing photos to Earth

 

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Shuttle crosses Los Angeles streets

Shuttle crosses Los Angeles streets

The space shuttle Endeavour travels 12 miles through LA streets on its way to the California Science Center.

Endeavour tours California, lands at LAX

Endeavour tours California, lands at LAX

The people became the paparazzi Friday, aiming their lenses not at the latest starlet, but toward the sky to catch a glimpse of an aging superstar headed for retirement.

Space shuttle Endeavour heads west

Space shuttle Endeavour heads west

The space shuttle Endeavour piggy-backs a modified jumbo jet to travel to California.

 
  • This image provided by NASA Thursday, Aug. 9, 2012, shows the first 360-degree color panorama taken on Mars by NASA's Curiosity rover. The panorama was stitched together using thumbnail images taken by the rover's mast camera. Curiosity landed in Gale Crater on Mars on August 5, 2012 to begin a two-year mission. (AP Photo/NASA)
  • A 360-degree panorama in color of Gale Crater Vista, taken by NASA's Curiosity rover is displayed at the Malin Space Science Systems, MSSS, control room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., early morning Thursday, Aug. 9, 2012. Scientists will be taking a closer look at several splotches in the foreground that appear gray. These areas show the effects of the descent stage's rocket engines blasting the ground. What appeared as a dark strip of dunes in previous, black-and-white pictures from Curiosity can also be seen along the top of this mosaic, but the color images also reveal additional shades of reddish brown around the dunes, likely indicating different textures or materials. MSSS built and operates the orbiter's Context Camera. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
  • Michael Malin, principal investigator, Mars Descent Imager on MSL, Malin Space Science Systems looks at a data set of the the first 360-degree panorama in color of the Gale Crater landing site taken by NASA's Curiosity rover, as it is processed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., early morning Thursday, Aug. 9, 2012. The images were taken late Aug. 8 PDT (Aug. 9 EDT) by the 34-millimeter Mast Camera. This panorama mosaic was made of 130 images of 144 by 144 pixels each. Selected full frames from this panorama, which are 1,200 by 1,200 pixels each, are expected to be transmitted to Earth later. The images in this panorama were brightened in the processing. Mars only receives half the sunlight Earth does and this image was taken in the late Martian afternoon. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
  • This image taken by NASA's Curiosity shows what lies ahead for the rover -- its main science target, informally called Mount Sharp, Monday, Aug. 6, 2012. The rover's shadow can be seen in the foreground, and the dark bands beyond are dunes. Rising up in the distance is the highest peak of Mount Sharp at a height of about 3.4 miles (5.5 kilometers), taller than Mt. Whitney in California. The Curiosity team hopes to drive the rover to the mountain to investigate its lower layers, which scientists think hold clues to past environmental change. This image was captured by the rover's front left Hazard-Avoidance camera at full resolution shortly after it landed. It has not yet been linearized to remove the distorted appearance that results from its fisheye lens. (AP Photo/NASA/JPL-Caltech)
  • This image released by NASA on Wednesday, Aug. 8, 2012, shows the edge of NASA's Curiosity rover, showing the shadow of the rover's now-upright mast in the center, and the arm's shadow at left. The navigation camera is used to help find the sun -- information that is needed for locating, and communicating, with Earth. (AP Photo/NASA)
  • This panoramic view comprised of multiple images put together, provided by NASA on Wednesday, Aug. 8, 2012, shows the first 360-degree panoramic view from NASA's Curiosity rover, taken with the Navigation cameras. Mount Sharp is to the right, and the north Gale Crater rim can be seen at center. The rover's body is in the foreground, with the shadow of its head, or mast, poking up to the right. (AP Photo/NASA)
  • In this image released by NASA on Wednesday, Aug. 8, 2012, a self portrait of NASA's Curiosity rover was taken by its Navigation cameras, located on the now-upright mast. The camera snapped pictures 360-degrees around the rover. (AP Photo/NASA)
  • In this image released by NASA on Wednesday, Aug. 8, 2012, an image showing the heat shield of NASA's Curiosity rover, obtained during descent to the surface of Mars. The image was obtained by the Mars Descent Imager instrument known as MARDI and shows the 15-foot diameter heat shield when it was about 50 feet from the spacecraft. (AP Photo/NASA)
  • This image released on Wednesday Aug. 8, 2012 by NASA, shows a mosaic of the first two full-resolution images of the Martian surface from the Navigation cameras on NASA's Curiosity rover. The rim of Gale Crater can be seen in the distance beyond the pebbly ground. The foreground shows two distinct zones of excavation likely carved out by blasts from the rover's descent stage thrusters. (AP Photo/NASA)
  • This image released by NASA on Wednesday Aug. 8, 2012 taken by cameras aboard the Curiosity rover shows the Martian horizon. It's one of dozens of images that will be made into a panorama. Curiosity landed on August 5, 2012 on a two-year mission to study whether its landing site ever could have supported microbial life. (AP Photo/NASA)
  • This image released by NASA on Tuesday Aug. 7, 2012 shows where Curiosity and its supporting hardware: Sky crane, Curiosity, Back shell, Parachute, and Heat Shield landed on the Martian surface after its successful landing last Sunday. (AP Photo/NASA)
  • This image taken by NASA's Curiosity shows what lies ahead for the rover -- its main science target, informally called Mount Sharp Monday, Aug. 6, 2012. The rover's shadow can be seen in the foreground, and the dark bands beyond are dunes. Rising up in the distance is the highest peak of Mount Sharp at a height of about 3.4 miles (5.5 kilometers), taller than Mt. Whitney in California. The Curiosity team hopes to drive the rover to the mountain to investigate its lower layers, which scientists think hold clues to past environmental change. This image was captured by the rover's front left Hazard-Avoidance camera at full resolution shortly after it landed. It has not yet been linearized to remove the distorted appearance that results from its fisheye lens. (AP Photo/NASA/JPL-Caltech)
  • This image of a false-color map based on data from NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter, and released by NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU, shows the area where NASA's Curiosity rover landed on Sunday, Aug. 5, 2012. The image was obtained by Odyssey's Thermal Emission Imaging System. It merges topographical data with thermal inertia data that record the ability of the surface to hold onto heat. The yellow oval shows the elliptical landing target for Curiosity's landing site. An alluvial fan is visible around a crater to the northwest of the landing area. A series of undulating lines traveling southeast from the crater indicates similar material moving down a slope. The material, which appears bluish-green in this image, also forms a fan shape. An area in red indicates a surface material that is more tightly cemented together than rocks around it and likely has a high concentration of minerals. An attractive interpretation for this texture is that water could have been present there some time in the past. (AP Photo/NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU)
  • In this image released by NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona, NASA's Curiosity rover and its parachute, left, descend to the Martian surface on Sunday, Aug. 5, 2012. The high-resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera captured this image of Curiosity while the orbiter was listening to transmissions from the rover. The inset image is a cutout of the rover stretched to avoid saturation. The rover is descending toward the etched plains just north of the sand dunes that fringe
  • In this photo released by NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona, NASA's Curiosity rover and its parachute, left, descend to the Martian surface on Sunday, Aug. 5, 2012. The high-resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera captured this image of Curiosity while the orbiter was listening to transmissions from the rover. (AP Photo/NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona)