NASA officials today released new images taken by and of the Mars Curiosity rover as it makes its way around Gale Crater.

Several images were captured by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which is flying above the Red Planet. Officials added a color boost to the images in order to highlight the difference in terrain around the crater.

"The landing region is not as colorful as regions to the south, closer to Mount Sharp, where Curiosity will eventually explore. In reality, the blue colors are more gray," NASA said.

The dark blue color at the bottom of the first shot in the slideshow below are dune fields between the rover and Mount Sharp. The rover is located about 980 feet from the bottom of the shot, NASA said.

NASA also put together a 3D image of Gale Crater, with a green dot showing where the rover landed and Mount Sharp in the middle. The photo was put together thanks to images from three Mars orbiters: the High Resolution Stereo Camera on the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter, the Context Camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and the Viking Orbiter imagery.

On Saturday, NASA started a four-day software update that ditched the rover's landing functionality and replaced it with an R10 update, which should allow the rover to drive and make use of its geochemistry lab sampling system.

On Monday, President Barack Obama called the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to congratulate the Curiosity team.

Photographer Andrew Bodrov also stitched together many of the Mars images to create a stunning, 360-degree panorama (below).

PCMag's Meredith Popolo was at the JPL in California covering the Curiosity rover's arrival on Mars. For more, her tour of JPL. Also check out 7 Minutes of Terror: Landing the Mars Curiosity Rover and How to Hack NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover.

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NASA Releases New Stunning Images of Mars Curiosity Rover