Essay Winner's Signature on NASA's Curiosity Rover

This full-resolution color image from NASA's Curiosity Rover shows the gravel-covered surface of Mars. It was taken by the Mars Descent Imager (MARDI) several minutes after Curiosity touched down o...

Engineers work on Opportunity (in its cruise configuration) in a cleanroom at Kennedy Space Center. A very important part of planetary protection is keeping contaminants from humans from riding abo...

NASA's Curiosity rover has detected the simple carbon-containing compounds chloro- and dichloromethane from the powdered rock sample extracted from the "John Klein" rock on Mars.

Images of locations in Gale Crater taken from orbit around Mars reveal evidence of erosion in recent geological times and development of small scarps, or vertical surfaces.

After an activity called the "mini drill test" by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, the rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera recorded this close-up view of the results during the 180th Martian d...

This panorama combining images taken on Feb. 10, 2014, by the Navigation Camera (Navcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover looks back to where the rover crossed a dune at "Dingo Gap" four days earlier...

This image from the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows detailed texture of a rock target called "Yellowjacket" on Mars' Mount Sharp.

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity used a mechanism on its robotic arm to dig up five scoopfuls of material from a patch of dusty sand called "Rocknest," producing the five bite-mark pits visible in this ...

Engineers just installed six new wheels on the Curiosity rover, and rotated all six wheels at once on July 9, 2010.

Where Curiosity Landed on Mars

Transporting the Curiosity rover from its birthplace in Pasadena, California to Cape Canaveral, Florida, took countless hours and careful planning and preparation. The precious rover was placed ont...

This side-by-side comparison shows the X-ray diffraction patterns of two different samples collected from rocks on Mars by NASA's Curiosity rover.

This view of grains from a sand dune near Christmas Lake, Ore., was taken by a testing twin of the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on NASA's Mars Science Laboratory.

The Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument, largest of the 10 science instruments for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission, will examine samples of Martian rocks, soil and atmosphere for inform...

A landscape scene from NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows rock rows at "Junda" forming striations in the foreground, with Mount Sharp on the horizon. The component images were taken by the rover's N...

The rock "Ithaca" shown here, with a rougher lower texture and smoother texture on top, appears to be a piece of the local sedimentary bedrock protruding from the surrounding soil in Gale Crater.

Sandstone layers with varying resistance to erosion are evident in this Martian scene recorded by the Mast Camera on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover on Feb. 25, 2014, about one-quarter mile (about 400 ...

The Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover fired its laser 50 times at its onboard graphite target during the 27th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's work on Mars...

Three images from the tool called AI4Mars show different kinds of Martian terrain as seen by NASA's Curiosity rover. By drawing borders around terrain features and assigning one of four labels to t...

This view of the calibration target for the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) aboard NASA's Mars rover Curiosity combines two images taken by that camera during the 34th Martian day, or sol, of Curios...

This image of NASA's Curiosity rover shows the location of the two components of the Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons instrument.

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover examined both the "Greenhorn" and "Big Sky" targets with the rover's Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) instrument. Greenhorn is located within an altered fracture...

The first stage of the Atlas V rocket for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission is lifted into an upright position for placement inside the Vertical Integration Facility at Space Launch Comp...

This scene shows the surroundings of the location where NASA Mars rover Curiosity arrived on the 29th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's mission on Mars (Sept. 4, 2012).

In the Vertical Integration Facility at Space Launch Complex 41, the payload fairing containing NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft was attached to its Atlas V rocket on Nov. 3, 2011.