Los Angeles ? From a lofty perch atop a Martian hill, NASA’s Spirit rover has been taking in a commanding view of a vast horizon since completing a difficult climb to the summit late last month.

This handout provided by NASA shows a panoramic picture, released Thursday, of the landscape of Mars, taken by the Mars rover Spirit from its lookout point. The image shows the rover's tracks in the dust, at right, plains of the surrounding Gusev Crater region, rugged terrain dubbed the

On Thursday, scientists released the first full-color panoramic picture of the landscape taken by the rover from its lookout point, showing the rover’s tracks in the dust, flat plains of the surrounding Gusev Crater region, rugged terrain dubbed “the geologic promised land” by one scientist, distant plateaus on the crater rim and more hills.

The solar-powered Spirit’s yearlong ascent to the peak of Husband Hill – part of the low-ranging Columbia Hills – was a major feat for the six-wheel rover, which along with its twin, Opportunity, landed on opposite sides of Mars in January 2004 to look for evidence of the past history of water on the cold, dusty world.

The rover reached the 270-foot-high summit – about the height of the Statue of Liberty – on Aug. 21.

“That’s no Mount Everest, but for a little rover this was a heck of a climb,” mission principal investigator Steve Squyres said in a briefing televised from NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C.

“This is an unprecedented engineering robotic accomplishment,” he said, adding that the panorama will probably be “one of the signature accomplishments of the mission.”