The images are stored on the robot's onboard computer which uses each chance it gets to communicate with earth and send home the photos, experts at NASA explained as they set about piecing together what amounts to a history-making puzzle.

The US space agency put on display 3-D images of Mars sent back at the weekend in the hours after Rover landed.

The new color pictures will provide a postcard panorama of the surface, though they could take a week to be sent back to Earth, according to James Bell, a member of the Rover's imaging team.

"We acquired the images successfully, they are in the Rover memory. We have to send them down now. The reason we know is that we have thumbnails of the pictures," said Steve Squyres, the mission scientific expert.

Squyres is one of about 280 scientists involved in the project who now have to get up 40 minutes earlier every day to catch up with Martian time.

Clad in blue jeans and cowboy boots, Squyres proudly displays a specially designed watch that falls late 39 minutes and 35 seconds every day, showing time on Mars.

"It's a unique piece, specially modified," boasts the scientist.

Spirit's camera was to collect 75 images with every photo taken five times, each with a different filter, to make possible the high-definition panoramic take.

Bell said a week might be enough time to get all the image data to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, some 300 million miles (500 million kilometers) away from Mars. He said the picture files could come in at a hefty 100 megabytes.

Black-and-white pictures sent back so far from the six-wheel robotic probe give a clear depiction of the rock-strewn plain surrounding the rover which landed on the Gusev crater, south of the Martian equator, on Saturday.

Spirit is thought to have landed in the eastern portion of the landing ellipse within Gusev Crater. Quick Desktops X Marks The Spot Colorized Ellipse (HiRes) or Mono Ellipse (HiRes) All 3 Descent Images Fullsize Landing Ellipse at MSSS NASA TV Portal

New pictures, which are snapped from a vertical arm extended above Spirit, will allow NASA to decide where it wants to drive the rover on its three month mission of exploration on Mars.

Squyres said a hole near Spirit looks a tempting spot to start exploration. NASA has christened the hole "Sleepy Hollow".

"It's a hole in the ground, a window in the interior of Mars, it's a very exciting feature for us, probably the place we are going to go first," Squyres said.

The pictures will also help mission managers select which soils and rocks to analyze.

For the moment, the robot probe is about 40 centimetres (16 inches) off the ground on the airbags that cushioned its impact on landing.

NASA claimed a second success with the deployment of a special aerial that will allow the transmission of information directly back to Earth instead of using satellites orbitting Mars.

The resolution of Spirit's images is three times superior to those produced during the 1997 Pathfinder mission, during which the mini-robot Sojourner moved a few yards (meters) on the Martian surface.

NASA plans to land a second rover on the opposite side of the red planet on January 25, both robots are designed to travel 40 meters (125 feet) each Martian day.

Powered by solar energy, the 820 million dollar mission to the surface of Mars involves some 250 NASA specialists and researchers.

This latest effort to unlock the secrets of the red planet is beginning just days after the planned December 25 arrival of the ill-fated European robot Beagle 2, which has not been heard from since that date.

British scientists behind the Beagle 2 Mars mission congratulated NASA Sunday but insisted they had not given up hope of contacting their own probe.

earlier Spirit Rover reports

JPL Status Report at time of this article Mars Team Energized About 'sleepy Hollow' Near Rover Pasadena (JPL) Jan 05, 2004 - "Sleepy Hollow," a shallow depression in the Mars ground near NASA's Spirit rover, may become an early destination when the rover drives off its lander platform in a week or so. That possible crater and other features delighted engineers and scientists examining pictures from the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit's first look around. "Reality has surpassed fantasy. We're like kids in a candy store," said Art Thompson, rover tactical activity lead at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "We can hardly wait until we get off the lander and start doing fun stuff on the surface." A clean bill of health from a checkout of all three science instruments on Spirit's robotic arm fortified scientists' anticipation of beginning to use those tools after the rover gets its six wheels onto the ground. Also, Spirit succeeded Sunday in finding the Sun with its panoramic camera and calculating how to point its main antenna toward Earth by knowing the Sun's position. "Just as the ancient mariners used sextants for 'shooting the Sun,' as they called it, we were successfully able to shoot the Sun with our panorama camera, then use that information to point the antenna," said JPL's Matt Wallace, mission manger. Within sight of Spirit are several wide, shallow bowls that may be impact craters, said Dr. Steve Squyres of Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, principal investigator for the spacecraft's science payload. "It's clear that while we have a generally flat surface, it is pockmarked with these things. The mission's scientists, who are getting little rest as they examine the pictures from Spirit, chose the name "Sleepy Hollow" for one of these circular depressions. This one is about 9 meters (30 feet) across and about 12 meters (40 feet) north of the lander, Squyres said. "It's a hole in the ground," he said. "It's a window into the interior of Mars." One of the next steps in preparing Spirit for rolling onto the soil is to extend the front wheels, which are tucked in for fitting inside a tight space during the flight from Earth. Spirit arrived at Mars Jan. 3 (EST and PST; Jan. 4 Universal Time) after a seven month journey. Its task is to spend the next three months exploring for clues in rocks and soil about whether the past environment at this part of Mars was ever watery and possibly suitable to sustain life. Spirit's twin Mars Exploration Rover, Opportunity, will reach its landing site on the opposite side of Mars on Jan. 25 (EST and Universal Time; Jan. 24 PST) to begin a similar examination of a site on the opposite side of the planet from Gusev Crater.

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