Comment by EternalFury

Can someone explain how/why a $2.6 billion piece of equipment appears to have cameras that can't match a $100 digital camera? I know it takes a long time for data to travel from there to here, but I am sure a lot of people wouldn't mind waiting for 1080p, full-color video footage of the red planet. Instead, we get these 1-megapixel, black-and-white shots that need to be stitched together to create a half decent panorama image. Sorry, there is probably a good technical reason for this, but I am just ignorant of it and I would appreciate an explanation.