The rover's power source is a thermonuclear electric generator that produces electricity from the heat of plutonium-238's radioactive decay. Longer-living and more reliable than solar power, the thermonuclear generator can provide Curiosity with power for at least a full year on Mars--687 days on Earth--and pumps warm fluids through the rover to keep it at the right operating temperatures.

It took communication signals 14 minutes after landing to reach Earth from Mars via a relay from NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter to the Canberra, Australia, antenna station of NASA's Deep Space Network.

Two minutes later, the first photo from Curiosity popped onto video screens at the California Institute of Technology's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., where the NASA mission is managed.

The grainy, low-resolution image showed one of the rover's wheels and the Martian horizon. A few minutes later the Curiosity began to transmit higher-resolution images back to Earth.