Planetary panorama in color

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Spirit rover yielded the sharpest picture ever taken of the surface of Mars, revealing in breathtaking detail Tuesday a completely rust-colored landscape strewn with rocks.

NASA scientists said the "postcard," sent across 105 million miles of space to Earth, had three to four times the resolution of any other pictures ever taken of the Red Planet. Spirit used a camera with the robotic equivalent of 20/20 vision.

"My reaction has been one of shock and awe," said Jim Bell of Cornell University, the main scientist on the rover camera team.

President Bush telephoned to congratulate the mission team, calling Spirit's successful landing on Mars over the weekend a "reconfirmation of the American spirit of exploration."

NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe announced that Spirit's landing site would be named Columbia Memorial Station, in memory of the six astronauts who died in February in the space shuttle disaster.

"Spirit carries the dream of exploration the brave astronauts of Columbia held in their hearts," O'Keefe said.

NASA has registered more than 1 billion hits on its rover-related Web sites, as computer users around the world logged on to see more of the first pictures from the surface of Mars since the Pathfinder mission in 1997.

Spirit is half of an $820 million project. Its identical twin, Opportunity, should land on the opposite side of Mars on Jan. 24. The rovers, the size of golf carts, were designed to probe Mars for evidence it once might have been a warmer, wetter place conducive to life.

Scientists said the picture was just a taste of bigger and better things to come from Spirit.

The postcard shows a vast plain scattered with a wide variety of rocks, including one in the far distance thought to be the size of a Volkswagen. Poking above the horizon, perhaps 16 miles to 19 miles away, a mesa could be seen standing against the reddish-pink of the martian sky.

"After looking at these images, it leaves me a little bit speechless," said Jennifer Trosper, mission manager for surface operations.

NASA displayed the new image for reporters in high-definition television, a first for any pictures from another planet. A zoom-in showed off the crisp detail. Thousands of rocks peppered the scene, each blasted smooth by iron-rich dust lofted by the stiff winds thought to scour the area.

"We don't have the slightest idea of what these rocks are made of yet," said Steven Squyres of Cornell, the mission's main scientist.

Scientists were especially intrigued by the thin crust on top of the martian soil.

"It's strangely cohesive. We don't know what holds it together," Squyres said. He speculated that evaporating water could have left salts behind that cemented the martian soil together.

None of the rocks in the immediate vicinity of the rover stands more than 8 inches tall, making them small enough for Spirit to easily drive over.

The new image is actually a mosaic of 12 pictures shot by Spirit's high-resolution panoramic camera, or Pancam.

"This beast is out -- she's out there taking these incredible pictures in the native habitat it's supposed to be working in," Bell said.

Spirit continued to prepare to roll off its lander to begin its 90-day mission to prospect for geologic evidence. It severed the second of three cables connecting it to its lander.

Temperatures aboard the rover were higher than expected, and NASA turned off the craft's UHF radio to cool Spirit down. Once Spirit rolls into action, no earlier than Monday, it should cool off further. Temperatures on the ground ranged from 32 to minus 58.

Engineers continue to study an intermittent spike in the current in one of two motors that drive the rover's high-gain antenna. None of the problems appeared serious, and Spirit remained in excellent health, NASA said.

"The object of our affection is doing quite well on the surface of Mars," said Firouz Naderi, manager of the Mars exploration program at JPL. "This baby has skipped all the baby talk and gone right into full sentences."

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On the Net

marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov