Take a look at a 360 degree interactive panorama of Mars taken by the Curiosity Rover. You can see Curiosity itself and the tracks it has made on the planet’s surface prior to shooting the photo. Go full screen.

This is amazing stuff. Hell, I remember Sputnik 1, the Russian satelite that kicked off the space race in 1957. We were dazzled by this “thing” that was circling the earth and not doing much more than transmitting “beeps” back to earth. Since that time, we’ve had men walk on the moon, numerous space shuttle flights, we find our way from place A to place B with the help of satelites, and now I am sitting at my computer looking at a color picture of the surface of the planet Mars as if I were there.

Don’t tell me the United States is not exceptional.

Thanks to da Chef of da Future for the link.