Pictures of Mars

I ran into this image the other day. It was taken by the new Mars rover, Curiosity(click to enlarge, for an even larger one see wikipedia):

Somehow I stumbled onto some of the images from Opportunity and Spirit though. They are much more impressive:

I imagine that once it has spent a little more time on the planet, Curiosity will put the previous smaller rovers to shame. The other rovers really did do a good job of making Mars seem like a real place rather than some fictitious world though. I am still of the opinion that open space is a much better place for colonization because Mars has just enough gravity to be annoying, but not enough to be useful. Still, I can totally see why people would want to try and make that planet home.