It's been three years since NASA's Curiosity rover, carrying the Mars Science Laboratory, made its bold skycrane-assisted landing on the surface of Mars.
Since then the rover has progressed across a wealth of varied and fascinating terrain. The southward looking panorama here has been stitched together from images taken back in April 2015 with the rover cameras - on Martian days (or sols) 952 and 953 after landing (a solar day on Mars is 24 hours and 39 minutes).
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
It's a marvelous view: from outcroppings and smooth bedrock, to rounded buttes still in the distance. But to fully appreciate the details and the extraordinary 'presence' of Mars you have to poke around this 70-plus MB pixel file.
Here are a few closeups, and you can explore the whole image directly online here.
Caleb A. Scharf is a researcher and writer. He is the senior scientist for astrobiology at NASA's Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley. Follow Caleb A. Scharf on Twitter
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