Desolate Landscape

This movie clip shows Phobos, the larger of the two moons of Mars, passing overhead, as observed by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity in a series of images centered straight overhead starting shortly aft...

This image from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows a portion of the pale rock outcrop that includes the "Bonanza King" target chosen for evaluation as the mission's four...

This graphic maps the first 14 sites where NASA's Curiosity Mars rover collected rock or soil samples for analysis using the rover's onboard laboratory. It also presents images of the drilled holes...

During final stacking of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft, the heat shield is positioned for integration with the rest of the spacecraft in this photograph from inside the Payload Hazardou...

On this image of the rock target "Knorr," color coding maps the amount of mineral hydration indicated by a ratio of near-infrared reflectance intensities measured by the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NA...

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...

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover captured evidence of layers that built up as windblown sand both accumulated and was scoured away at a location nicknamed “Las Claritas.” This image was captured using C...

With a view taken from inside the Vertical Integration Facility at Space Launch Complex 41 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, the final solid rocket motor (SRM) hangs in an upright pos...

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover autonomously selects some targets for the laser and telescopic camera of its ChemCam instrument. For example, on-board software analyzed the Navcam image at left, chose ...

This kickoff of a new Mars video series covers Opportunity's 14th anniversary on the Red Planet, Curiosity's spectacular panorama and ice deposits spotted by an orbiter.

Astronaut Leland Melvin, NASA’s Associate Administrator for Education, has a little fun with teachers while talking about how to eat snacks in space. Melvin served on board the Space Shuttle Atlant...

This stereo view from the Navigation Camera (Navcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows a 360-degree panorama around the location where the rover spent its 1,000th Martian day, or sol, on Mars. T...

This mosaic taken by NASA's Mars Curiosity rover looks uphill at Mount Sharp, which Curiosity has been climbing. 

This image maps the traverse of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity from "Bradbury Landing" to "Yellowknife Bay," with an inset documenting a change in the ground's thermal properties with arrival at a dif...

One priority target for a closer look by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity before the rover departs the "Glenelg" area east of its landing site is the pitted outcrop called "Point Lake," in the upper hal...

This global image shows seven possible landing sites for MSL.

The total distance driven by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity passed the one-mile mark a few days before the first anniversary of the rover's landing on Mars.

This image, taken with the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera, shows the transition between the "Murray Formation," in which layers are poorly expressed and difficult to tra...

The main map here shows the assortment of landforms near the location of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover as the rover's second anniversary of landing on Mars nears.

This graph presents information from the NASA Curiosity Mars rover's onboard analysis of rock powder drilled from the "Buckskin" and "Greenhorn" target locations on lower Mount Sharp.

The Mars Science Laboratory mission's "powered descent vehicle" is the integrated combination of the spacecraft's descent stage and the rover Curiosity. It is shown inside the Payload Hazardous Ser...

This image is the first high-resolution color mosaic from NASA's Curiosity rover, showing the geological environment around the rover's landing site in Gale Crater on Mars.

The top of the rover's mast faces away in this May 11, 2016, self-portrait of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover, which shows the vehicle at the "Okoruso" drilling site on lower Mount Sharp. The scene is ...

Scientist Katie Stack Morgan examines rover images on her computer. Images, even 3-D stereo views, lack a natural sense of depth that human vision employs to understand spatial relationships.

Thick stacks of clay minerals indicate chemical alteration of thick stacks of rock by interaction with liquid water on ancient Mars.