Dunes Obstacle Course

Artist concept of Mars Science Laboratory Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

This image from NASA's Curiosity rover shows the great diversity of grains found on the surface of a Martian rock.

Engineers test Curiosity's hill-climbing capabilities using her Earthbound twin.

This rock encountered by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover is an iron meteorite called "Lebanon," similar in shape and luster to iron meteorites found on Mars by the previous generation of rovers, Spirit...

This is an artist's concept of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft approaching Mars.

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover used the drill on the end of its robotic arm to collect a sample from a rock nicknamed “Sequoia” on Oct. 17, 2023, the 3,980th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. The r...

An etched version of Leonardo da Vinci's self-portrait on the Microchip to be placed aboard NASA's Mars Curiosity Rover.

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover used its Navigation Camera (Navcam) to capture this view partway back down a slope it climbed toward "Marias Pass" on lower Mount Sharp. The image was taken May 22, 2015...

This collage shows the variety of soils found at landing sites on Mars.

After 2 years and nearly 9 kilometers of driving, NASA's Mars Curiosity has arrived at the base of Mount Sharp.

Engineers and technicians have been planning for months and working for weeks on the big move for NASA's Mars Curiosity rover.

One type of feature of scientific interest on the mountain inside Gale crater is exposure of cemented fractures, evidence that groundwater once reached to at least that height of the mountain.

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has clocked more than a decade of service at the Red Planet and has yielded scientific discoveries and magnificent views of a distant world. These images taken by...

This is a view of the third (left) and fourth (right) trenches made by the 1.6-inch-wide (4-centimeter-wide) scoop on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity in October 2012.

This map of Mars shows 4 possible landing sites for the Mars Science Laboratory. Aslo shown are the landing sites for past missions; Phoenix, Viking 1, Viking 2 Pathfinder, Opportunity and Spirit.

During pre-flight testing, the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity took this image of the MAHLI calibration target from a distance of 3.94 inches (10 centimeters) aw...

This is a picture of some of the women working on the Curiosity rover posing with Curiosity's mobility double, "Scarecrow," used to test drive under different soil conditions in the JPL "Mars Yard."

About the size of a small toaster, the Radiation Assessment Detector will look skyward and use a stack of silicon detectors and a crystal of cesium iodide to measure galactic cosmic rays and solar ...

A ceremonial ribbon is cut for the opening of new "Destination: Mars" experience at the Kennedy Space Center visitor complex in Florida.

The hills and troughs in this little valley, carved between a ridge and cliffs higher up Mount Sharp, almost look like undulating waves. The Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover cap...

This 360-degree scene from the Mastcam on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover includes part of a linear-shaped dune the rover examined in early 2017 for comparison with what it found previously at crescent...

The development of the Mars rover Curiosity's capabilities for drilling into a rock on Mars required years of development work.

This panorama captured by NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover shows a location nicknamed “Pontours” where scientists spotted preserved, ancient mud cracks believed to have formed during long cycles of wet ...

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...

This color-enhanced view shows the terrain around the rover's landing site within Gale Crater on Mars.