Driving Over Sandy Ripples

On Sol 32 (Sept. 7, 2012) the Curiosity rover used the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) located on its arm to obtain this self-portrait.

These images from the NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show several impact scars on Mars made by pieces of the NASA Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft that the spacecraft shed just before entering ...

This graph compares the elemental composition of typical soils at three landing regions on Mars.

This annotated artists' concept shows the location of all of the Curiosity rover's 17 cameras.

The Curiosity rover is a big nerd at heart, fitted with a science lab to take in the planet Mars. Get the inside scoop on the mission’s many discoveries and dramas after a decade on the Red Planet.

This plot shows the first-ever look at the deuterium to hydrogen ratio measured from the surface of Mars, as detected by the Sample Analysis at Mars instrument, or SAM, on NASA's Curiosity rover.

This Dec. 18, 2015, view of the downwind face of "Namib Dune" on Mars covers 360 degrees, including a portion of Mount Sharp on the horizon. The component images were taken by the Mast Camera on NA...

This set of images shows the results from the rock abrasion tool from NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity (left) and the drill from NASA's Curiosity rover (right).

This map shows the route driven by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover from the "Bradbury Landing" location where it landed in August 2012 (the start of the line in upper right) to a major waypoint called ...

This wide view of the 'John Klein' location selected for the first rock drilling by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity is a mosaic taken by Curiosity's right Mast Camera (Mastcam) during the afternoon of ...

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

This image shows the calibration target for the Chemistry and Camera instrument on NASA's Curiosity rover before it was installed on the rover and readied for launch.

Peter C. Theisinger served as the first project manager of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory project at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

The gray area in the center of this image is where the Dust Removal Tool on the robotic arm of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity brushed a rock target called "Wernecke."

This scene shows NASA's Curiosity Mars rover at a location called "Windjana," where the rover found rocks containing manganese-oxide minerals, which require abundant water and strongly oxidizing co...

Engineers put the rover through thousands of hours of testing. They did drop tests; pull tests; drive tests; load tests, and many other tests to get Curiosity ready for launch.

​NASA's Curiosity rover has discovered ancient organic molecules on Mars, embedded within sedimentary rocks that are billions of years old.

Goal 2: Characterize the climate of Mars

The Atlas V rocket set to launch NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission is illuminated inside the Vertical Integration Facility at Space Launch Complex 41, where employees have gathered to ho...

This set of drawings depicts cross sections of the "Yellowknife Bay" area of Mars' Gale Crater at three points in time going back more than 80 million years (>80 Ma).

This graphic shows the ongoing contributions of NASA’s rovers and orbiters during a Martian dust storm that began on May 30, 2018.

Teachers at the Educator Workshop listen attentively to a demonstration of Microsoft’s Kodu Mars Experience, a software program that allows students to design and create their own computer games.

In this image from NASA's Curiosity rover, a rock outcrop called Link pops out from a Martian surface that is elsewhere blanketed by reddish-brown dust. The fractured Link outcrop has blocks of exp...

An image taken at the "Hidden Valley" site, en-route to Mount Sharp, by NASA's Curiosity rover.

The Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has two rectangular "eyes" near the top of the rover's remote sensing mast. The mast is on the right side of the rover, which puts it on the...