The base of Mars' Mount Sharp - the rover's eventual science destination - is pictured in this August 27, 2012 NASA handout photo taken by the Curiosity rover. The image is a portion of a larger image taken by Curiosity's 100-millimetre Mast Camera on August 23. Scientists enhanced the color to show the Martian scene under the lighting conditions we have on Earth, which helps in analysing the terrain.
Image by: NASA/Reuters / REUTERS

Mars' Mount Sharp - the rover's eventual science destination - is pictured in this August 27, 2012 NASA handout photo taken by the Curiosity rover.
Image by: NASA / REUTERS

An August 27, 2012 NASA handout photo shows a portion of the Grand Canyon. The lower reaches of Mount Sharp form a succession of strata as thick as those exposed in the Grand Canyon, and with a diversity of colors to match. The major difference is that the strata of the Grand Canyon are exposed along a great valley, whereas the strata of Mount Sharp are exposed along the flanks of a great mountain.
Image by: NASA / REUTERS

Handout image courtesy of NASA shows tracks left by the Curiosity rover on Mars August 22, 2012. The rover made its first move, going forward about 4.5 meters, rotating 120 degrees and then reversing about 2.5 meters. Curiosity is about 6 meters from its landing site, now named Bradbury Landing.
Image by: NASA / REUTERS

Handout image courtesy of NASA shows tracks left by the Curiosity rover on Mars August 22, 2012.
Image by: NASA / REUTERS

Handout image courtesy of NASA shows tracks left by the Curiosity rover on Mars August 22, 2012.
Image by: NASA / REUTERS

Handout image courtesy of NASA shows tracks left by the Curiosity rover on Mars August 22, 2012.
Image by: NASA / REUTERS

Handout image courtesy of NASA shows tracks left by the Curiosity rover on Mars August 22, 2012.
Image by: NASA / REUTERS

The movement of the rear right wheel of NASA's Curiosity as rover drivers turn the wheels in place at the landing site on Mars is pictured in this handout taken by one of Curiosity's Navigation cameras, and released by Nasa. Engineers wiggled the wheels as a test of the rover's steering and anticipate embarking on Curiosity's first drive.
Image by: HANDOUT / REUTERS

In this detail section of an image taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, released by NASA August 14, 2012, as the satellite flew overhead, shows the terrain around the rover's landing site within Gale Crater on Mars.
Image by: HANDOUT / REUTERS

This colour image taken August 8, 2012 from NASA's Curiosity rover, and released August 13, shows part of the wall of Gale Crater, the location on Mars where the Curiosity rover landed.
Image by: HANDOUT / REUTERS

This colour image from Nasa's Curiosity rover, taken August 8, 2012 and released by NASA August 12, 2012, shows an area excavated by the blast of the Mars Science Laboratory's descent stage rocket engines. This is part of a larger, high-resolution color mosaic made from images obtained by Curiosity's Mast Camera. With the loose debris blasted away by the rockets, details of the underlying materials are clearly seen. Of particular note is a well-defined, topmost layer that contains fragments of rock embedded in a matrix of finer material. Shown in the inset in the figure are pebbles up to about 3 centimetres across (top two arrows) and a larger clast 11.5 centimetres long protruding up by about 10 centimetres from the layer in which it is embedded.
Image by: HANDOUT / REUTERS