After an uneventful second day on Mars, the Curiosity rover sent home a big gift yesterday. The first high-resolution shot of the Gale Crater that’ll be her home for the next 700 days. The image is taken from the navigation camera, and we still don’t have a color version yet, but they’ll still kicking the tires on the rover and ensuring everything is working correctly.

I’ve seen some people not impressed with the rover landing and pictures being sent back. Firstly, this is just the first two days of a two year mission and they’re still working to make sure the thing is actually fully functional after an eight month trip to the planet. Secondly, how can us landing a small SUV-sized rover on another planet not excite you? This is the closest thing we’ll get to having a human there for at least another 20 years, so you should be drooling over everything the rover sends home.

Today is Sol 4, and NASA has been teasing a high-definition descent video. Hopefully we get that tonight! Click here for a high res version of the above image.