Curiosity may be the most sophisticated spacecraft ever sent to another planet, but the 900-kilogram rover runs on a computer with the same power as a smartphone.

The main computer that controls the rover's post-landing software has a processing speed of just 200 megahertz, less than half the power of the latest iPhones.

As well as navigating Curiosity, the computer powers the rover's 10 scientific instruments and 17 cameras, which will beam back the highest quality photographs ever taken of the red planet.

"If Curiosity is remembered for anything, it will be remembered for its pictures," said Glen Nagle, the spokesman for the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex, which manages three antennas that communicate with the rover.

A mission manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Mike Watkins, said Curiosity's pictures provided great excitement for NASA scientists.

"Every time we get a new one we all crowd around the screen and watch the image come up," he said.

Yesterday the rover released its first panorama from its two pairs of black and white greyscale navigational cameras, NavCams, which will help direct the rover when it starts moving across the Martian surface.

The 360-view, taken in tiers, shows parts of the rover and the surrounding landscape.

"So imagine looking your eyes down and then walking around in a circle, we're not taking the upper tiers [of the horizon] yet," said Dr Watkins.

The rover also used its NavCams to snap its first high resolution images yesterday. In the foreground, part of the rover can be seen, while the rim of the Gale Crater can be seen in the distance.

On Tuesday the rover transmitted its first colour image from its Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), also showing part of the north rim of Gale Crater.

The MAHLI principle investigator, Ken Edgett, said the instrument's first image, which was a little murky because the camera was still covered with its dust shield, had been "emotional for me".

"I've waited a long time for this to come back," said Mr Edgett, who works for Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego. "It works, it's awesome, and I cant wait to open it and see what else we can see," he said.

The rover's Mars Descent Imager (Mardi) also took some impressive images when it started snapping four frames per second just moments before the spacecraft's heat shield was released.

Thumbnail images of the descent have been pieced together to form a movie of the spacecraft's descent, while a high-resolution image of the 4.5 metre heat shield was released by NASA yesterday.

The principal Mardi investigator, Mike Malin, said these images were the "good stuff" everyone had been waiting for.

"You can actually see the stitching in the thermal blanket; there's wiring in there also for the [heatshield sensors]," he told the BBC.

The rover is not the only space-probe taking impressive Mars pictures.

Following Curiosity's descent, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter HiRISE camera snapped what NASA scientists have called the "crime scene photo", an image showing Curiosity and the final resting place of its parachute and back shell, sky crane and heat shield.

Curiosity sends data, including images, back to Earth through its multiple antennas via the two Mars orbiters, Reconnaissance and Odyssey. It can also send messages directly to Earth.

At the moment data relay rates remain low, but the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has the capacity to relay data at up to 2 megabits per second.

"Right now we are getting the vast majority of data through the relay orbiters, but we're about to get four or five times more [data] per day," Dr Watkins said.

-Sydney Morning Herald

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