NASA's Mars Curiosity rover has beamed back new colour images capturing the layered geologic past of the red planet in stunning detail. Mars rover Curiosity is currently exploring the "Murray Buttes" region of lower Mount Sharp. The new images arguably rival photos taken in US National Parks, NASA said. Curiosity took the images with its Mast Camera (Mastcam) on September 8. The rover team plans to assemble several large, colour mosaics from the multitude of images taken at this location in the near future.

Curiosity landed near Mount Sharp in 2012. It reached the base of the mountain in 2014 after successfully finding evidence on the surrounding plains that ancient Martian lakes offered conditions that would have been favourable for microbes if Mars has ever hosted life.

Rock layers forming the base of Mount Sharp accumulated as sediment within ancient lakes billions of years ago. On Mount Sharp, Curiosity is investigating how and when the habitable ancient conditions known from the mission's earlier findings evolved into conditions drier and less favourable.