The robotic probe Spirit has sent back its first colour images of Mars. The pictures of the dusty and rocky surface are the most detailed ever obtained by a lander on the planet. US space agency scientists report that the rover is in excellent health as they continue to prepare it for its mission to explore Gusev Crater.

The US space agency, NASA, has announced that Spirit's landing site will be named the Columbia Memorial Station, in honour of the of seven crew who died in last February's space shuttle disaster.

NASA unveiled one main image of the surface of Mars. It showed a plain full of small boulders and dust. The image was actually a mosaic of 12 separate pictures shot by Spirit's high-resolution panoramic camera, or Pancam. It covered a 45-degree field of view of the terrain in Gusev Crater, where Spirit landed on Sunday at 0435 GMT.

The researchers said it would take some time to receive all the data to put together a colour panorama of the landing site - similar to the black and white 3D panorama taken by Spirit's stereo cameras and released on Monday. Scientists hope the rocks shown in the pictures will help them understand the planet's past climate.

They will use Spirit to drill into the boulders to see if they have come into contact with water at any time in the geologic past. Gusev Crater appears, from images taken by orbiting spacecraft, to have held a lake at one time.

Spirit, which is the size of a golf buggy, touched down on Mars in what scientists believe was a near-perfect landing with giant airbags as cushions. It will be joined in late January by an identical rover called Opportunity, which will land on the far side of the planet.

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