Planum Boreum crater

The artist's animation depicts how NASA's Curiosity rover will communicate with Earth during landing. As the rover descends to Mars, it will send out basic radio-frequency tones that go directly to...

Dr. Bill Boynton, Principal Investigator for the Gamma Ray Spectrometer suite of instruments Image credit: NASA/JPL

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Echus Chasma forms the boundary between the Tharsis volcanoes to the west and Lunae Planum to the east. This region is one of both tectonically fractured rocks (top of image) and volcanic flows (mi...

This computer-generated view based on multiple orbital observations shows Mars' Gale crater as if seen from an aircraft north of the crater.

Snow falls and ice and frost form on Mars, too. NASA's spacecraft on and orbiting the Red Planet reveal the similarities to and differences from how we experience winter on Earth.  

Color coding in this map of a far-northern site on Mars indicates the change in nighttime ground-surface temperature between summer and fall. This site, like most of high-latitude Mars, has water i...

The Odyssey spacecraft was launched toward Mars on April 7, 2001 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. In this four-part video series, Odyssey navigation team members explain the daily challenges of steeri...

Re-analysis of 2002-2009 data from a hydrogen-finding instrument on NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter increased the resolution of maps of hydrogen abundance. 

The Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) camera on NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft has completed an unprecedented full decade of observing Mars from orbit.

Morning clouds fill Coprates Chasma on Mars in this Nov. 25, 2015, image from the THEMIS camera on NASA's Mars Odyssey. No orbiter systematically observed Mars in morning sunlight before 2015. The ...

NASA's NEOWISE mission detected comet C/2013 A1 Siding Spring on July 28, 2014, less than three months before this comet's close flyby of Mars on Oct. 19. This merging of multiple images presents t...

Download a PDF of the 2001 Mars Odyssey Launch Press Kit.

First THEMIS Image of Mars

Sand dunes shaped like blue-black flames lie next to a central hill within an unnamed, 120-kilometer-wide (75-mile-wide) crater in eastern Arabia on Mars.

Wind shadow and real shadow combine to give a striking image of a comet.

On the southwest edge of the immense volcanic region of Tharsis, lava from its giant volcanoes flowed down to meet the old cratered landscape of Terra Sirenum.

Download a PDF of the Explore Mars Sticker.

West of Valles Marineris lies a checkerboard named Noctis Labyrinthus, which formed when the Martian crust stretched and fractured.

Seen shortly after local Martian sunrise, clouds gather in the summit pit, or caldera, of Pavonis Mons, a giant volcano on Mars, in this image from the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) on N...

Gale Crater, home to NASA's Curiosity Mars rover, shows a new face in this image made using data from the THEMIS camera on NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter.

Fans and ribbons of dark sand dunes creep across the floor of Bunge Crater in response to winds blowing from the direction at the top of the picture.

This THEMIS visible image shows a close-up view of the ridged plains in Hesperia Planum. This region is the classic locality for martian surfaces that formed in the "middle ages" of martian history.

This unnamed channel is located in Xanthe Terra.

This lunar-like scene occurs along the southeastern rim of the Isidis Planitia basin. The Isidis basin is an ancient impact crater some 1200 km across that is found along the boundary separating th...