Explore Mars In Fine Detail With New Panoramic Images

NASA just released these amazing billion pixel, interactive panoramic photographs of the surface of Mars, taken by the Curiosity rover.

You can access them at NASA's website.

The Curiosity rover has been on Mars for about 10 months now. It's done some awesome things, like the first drilling of Martian rocks and shown that the pebbles in Gale Crater indicate there could have been hip-deep water flowing over the area.

The panoramas were created using almost 900 exposures from Curiosity's cameras.

"It gives a sense of place and really shows off the cameras' capabilities," said Bob Deen of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a statement. "You can see the context and also zoom in to see very fine details."

You can see the images in either white-balanced, to make the rocks look as they would on Earth, or in the Raw Color. Definitely make the panoramas full screen. (The button is hiding for us, but still clickable — a sliver is hanging out under the "View All" button.)

There are also snapshots which will zoom you to places of interest, like the rover's landing site, and this bird that looks like a rock: