The images were taken three days ago by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), which reached in its permanent Martian orbit this week after an August 2005 launch.
The MRO is providing support for the Mars Rover Opportunity, which began its first week at the enormous crater, exploring the layered rocks in cliffs ringing it.
The Victoria crater is the biggest crater the National Aeronautics and Space Administration will probably get to with its two rovers on the Martian surface, Doug McCuistion, director of NASA's Mars Exploration Program in Washington said.
"It gives us a window on the past on the planet," Mr McCuistion said.
Exposed geological layers in the cliff-like portions of Victoria's inner wall appear to record a longer span of Mars' environmental history than the rover has studied in smaller craters.
Victoria is five times larger than any crater Opportunity has visited during its Martian trek.
Its cliffs are up to several hundred metres high, and the boulders are 1.8 to 2.7 metres in diameter.
The high level of detail in the photo will help guide Opportunity's exploration of Victoria, named for the sole surviving ship of the Portuguese explorer Magellan's global odyssey.
Steve Squyres of Cornell University in New York, the principal investigator for Opportunity and its twin rover, Spirit (which is located on the opposite side of the planet) called the operation "a remarkable opportunity".
Water
Mr Squyres said the rocks were probably extremely old and show "pervasive evidence" of having once been soaked in water.
Some of the MRO's aerial images showed the rover perched on the outer rim of the Victoria crater, and provided significantly greater detail than previous images, scientists said.
Jim Bell, lead scientist for the rover's panoramic camera, said he was "running out of superlatives" to describe the "stunning" images of Mars.
The MRO mission is to search for evidence that water existed on the surface of Mars for a long period of time. While other Mars missions have shown that water flowed across the surface in the planet's history, it remains a mystery whether water was ever around long enough to provide a habitat for life.
Within two months after landing on Mars in early 2004, Opportunity found geological evidence for a long-ago environment that was wet.
Scientists hope the layers in Victoria will provide new clues about whether that wet environment was persistent, fleeting or cyclical.
NASA plans to drive Opportunity from crater ridge to ridge, studying nearby cliffs across the intervening alcoves and looking for safe ways to drive the rover down into the bowl.
"It's like going to the Grand Canyon and seeing what you can from several different overlooks before you walk down," Mr Bell said.