Landing Site Region

This image provides higher-resolution views of a site where another observation (PIA10247) indicates the presence of chloride salt deposits.

This image shows the topography, with shading added, around the area where NASA's Curiosity rover landed on Aug. 5 PDT (Aug. 6 EDT).

This proposed future Mars landing site in Acidalia Planitia targets densely occurring mounds thought to be mud volcanoes.

This image (top) taken by the Shallow Radar instrument on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter reveals the layers of ice, sand and dust that make up the north polar ice cap on Mars

What is this enigmatic landform?

Blue dots on this map indicate sites of recurring slope lineae (RSL) in part of the Valles Marineris canyon network on Mars. RSL are seasonal dark streaks that may be indicators of liquid water. Th...

This pair of before (left) and after (right) images from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter documents formation of a new channel on...

The bright feature in this image might be the parachute from a 1971 Soviet Mars lander named Mars 3. The image was taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's...

This image shows NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity perched on the edge of "Concepción" crater in Meridiani Planum, Mars.

In early 2017, after more than a decade of observing Mars, the Context Camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) surpassed 99 percent coverage of the entire planet. This mosaic shows that...

In February 2015, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity is approaching a cumulative driving distance on Mars equal to the length of a marathon race. This map shows the rover's position relative...

Shalbatana Vallis is a large channel with steep walls and a flat floor that may have formed by water draining from nearby Ganges Chasma. Here a section of the wall collapsed and produced a landslid...

Five images of comet Siding Spring taken within a 35-minute period as it passed near Mars on Oct. 19, 2014, provide information about the size of the comet's nucleus. The images were acquired by th...

Icy Layers and Climate Fluctuations near the Martian North Pole

This picture was taken during the Martian summer with only small patches of ice remaining at the surface; they show up as bright, somewhat blue, spots on slopes that provide some shading from the Sun.

The Mars Climate Sounder instrument on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter maps the vertical distribution of temperatures, dust, water vapor and ice clouds in the Martian atmosphere as the orbiter f...

Lighter colors represent higher elevation in this image of Jezero Crater on Mars, the landing site for NASA's Mars 2020 mission. The oval indicates the landing ellipse, where the rover will be touc...

This map shows the route driven by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover from the location where it landed in August 2012 to its location in mid-November 2015, approaching examples of dunes in the "Bagnold D...

This artist's animation shows how NASA's Curiosity rover will communicate with Earth via two of NASA's Mars orbiters, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Odyssey. As the rover descends to the surface o...

In the novel and movie "The Martian," an astronaut's adventures take him to the rim of Mawrth Crater. This image from the HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows the nature of thi...

This area at the base of Mount Sharp on Mars includes a pale outcrop, called "Pahrump Hills," that NASA's Curiosity Mars rover investigated from September 2014 to March 2015, and the "Artist's Driv...

This animation flips back and forth between views taken in 2010 and 2014 of a Martian sand dune at the edge of Mount Sharp, documenting dune activity. The images are from the HiRISE camera on NASA'...

This map shows the route driven by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover from the location where it landed in August 2012 to its location in December 2016, which is in the upper half of a geological unit cal...

This animation simulates a flyover of a portion of a Martian canyon detailed in a geological map produced by the U.S. Geological Survey and based on observations by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbit...

The yellow-white cloud in the bottom-center of this image is a Mars "dust tower" — a concentrated cloud of dust that can be lofted dozens of miles above the surface. The blue-white plumes are water...