Mars moblog: amazing photos beamed home from NASA Spirit

Now *that* is a photoblog. Chronologically indexed gallery of interplanetary snapshots from this weekend's Mars landing. The first images sent back are of limited quality — and only in black and white — because data transmission rate from Spirit's antenna back to Earth is limited. Higher-res color images are expected to be relayed back from the orbiting Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey Spacecraft later today, according to Mission Control. At left:

"This mosaic image taken by the navigation camera on the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit has been further processed, resulting in a significantly improved 360 degree panoramic view of the rover on the surface of Mars."

Link to NASA's Mars moblog, link to full-size, 360-degree composite panorama image. Link to AP story with details on how NASA's coping with bursting web traffic for the online images (= 1300 web servers around the world!). (Thanks, Warren)