NASA said the close-up was taken on 2 October 2013, Curiosity's 411th Martian day, after 14 months on the planet, with dust coating the coin.
The image was captured by the rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager, and the penny was carried to Mars deliberately rather than discovered there.
NASA calls it a "lucky penny on Mars", using the century-old coin as a familiar size reference to help geologists judge the scale of rocks and surface features.
How has a penny's 14-year survival on Mars created a new frontier for both science and coin collecting?
With rovers on old and young terrain, what discovery would finally link their findings about Mars's past?
After finding life's building blocks, what is the final piece of the puzzle Curiosity must find on Mars?