The Curiosity rover was finally able to remove its dust cover so it could produce the best quality image we've seen so far of the landscape on Mars.
Now, don't get too excited. There isn't any water here, or aliens. Unfortunately. Maybe some day. It's still early in the mission. (Hi, aliens!) But because the weather finally calmed down and the dust settled (literally), Curiosity was able to remove its protective lens to produce this photo:
The reclosable dust cover on Curiosity's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) was opened for the first time during the 33rd Martian day, or sol, of the rover's mission on Mars (Sept. 8, 2012), enabling MAHLI to take this image.
The level of detail apparent in the image shows that haziness in earlier MAHLI images since landing was due to dust that had settled on the dust cover during the landing.
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