First color Mars-rover pictures, plus satellite shots of crashed gear

In its first color picture from the surface of Mars, released Tuesday, NASA's Curiosity rover shows the rim of its new home, 15,000-foot-deep (4,600-meter-deep) Gale Crater, shortly after landing on Monday.

The photo was shot with the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on the end of Curiosity's robotic arm. But because the arm hasn't yet been fully activated and the rover isn't yet mobile, the camera for now can point only in the direction dictated by the landing position.

"We can't control the orientation of the rover on landing," Peter Theisinger of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) said at a pre-landing press conference. "If it's pointed at the mountain, we'll get a...

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