Replicating Martian Dunes

Cross-bedding seen in the layers of this Martian rock is evidence of movement of water recorded by waves or ripples of loose sediment the water passed over.

A self-portrait taken by NASA's Curiosity rover taken on Sol 2082 (June 15, 2018). A Martian dust storm has reduced sunlight and visibility at the rover's location in Gale Crater.

This artists concept of MSL is a still from the MSL Mission Overview video. It shows MSL on the surface of Mars.

The Lincoln penny in this photograph is part of a camera calibration target attached to NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, which is on track for a landing on Mars the night of Aug. 5 to Aug. 6, 2012.

This photograph of the NASA Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity, was taken during mobility testing on June 3, 2011. The location is inside the Spacecraft Assembly Facility at NASA's Jet Propul...

This view of terrestrial rocks was taken by a testing twin -- the "life test unit" -- of the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on NASA's Mars Science Laboratory.

This sequence of images shows a blast zone where the sky crane from NASA's Curiosity rover mission hit the ground after setting the rover down in August 2012, and how that dark scar's appearance ch...

Scarecrow, a mobility-testing model for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory, easily traverses large rocks in the Mars Yard testing area at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The foreground of this scene from the Mastcam on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows purple-hued rocks near the rover's late-2016 location. The middle distance includes future destinations for the ro...

This cut-out from a color panorama image taken by NASA's Curiosity rover shows the effects of the descent stage's rocket engines blasting the ground.

Grad student Nicholas Boyd (left) and Principal Investigator Ralf Gellert, both of the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada, prepare for the installation of the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer s...

This animation depicts the location of the ChemCam instrument at the top of the mast on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity and the field of view of the instrument's camera, called the Remote Micro-Imager....

A selfie taken by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover on Sol 2291 (January 15) at the "Rock Hall" drill site, located on Vera Rubin Ridge.

How do you prepare to land a one-ton rover lightly on the surface of Mars? Practice!

These 26 holes represent each of the rock samples NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has collected as of early July 2020. A map in the upper left shows where the holes were drilled along the rover's route...

At the Vertical Integration Facility at Space Launch Complex 41 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, technicians use a lifting device to elevate a solid rocket motor (SRM) into an uprigh...

The cruise stage will have support ribs, solar arrays, a radiator, and an adapter for connecting the vehicle to the rockets that will launch it from Earth.

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover used its Mast Camera, or Mastcam, to take this 360-degree panorama on March 23, 2022, the 3,423th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. The team has informally described ...

This view from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity shows an example of cross-bedding that results from water passing over a loose bed of sediment.

This image taken by NASA's Curiosity shows what lies ahead for the rover -- its main science target, Mount Sharp.

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...

Two of the raised treads, called grousers, on the left middle wheel of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover broke during the first quarter of 2017, including the one seen partially detached at the top of th...

This animated image blinks two versions of a May 11, 2016, selfie of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover at a drilled sample site called "Okoruso." In one version, cameras atop the rover's mast face the ar...

The Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity was used to check the composition of gray tailings from the hole in rock target "Cumberland" that the rover drilled on M...

This mosaic view from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity shows textural characteristics and shapes of an outcrop called "Point Lake."