Gale Crater

This view of the head of the remote sensing mast on the Mars Science Laboratory mission's rover, Curiosity, shows seven of the 17 cameras on the rover.

This view of terrestrial rocks was taken by a testing twin -- the "life test unit" -- of the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on NASA's Mars Science Laboratory.

Sensors on two finger-like mini-booms extending horizontally from the mast of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity will monitor wind speed, wind direction and air temperature.

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover can be seen at the "Pahrump Hills" area of Gale Crater in this view from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orb...

The Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission will study chemistry of rocks, soil and air as the mission's rover, Curiosity, investigates Gale Crater on Mars.

This diagram illustrates Mars' "thermal tides," a weather phenomenon responsible for large, daily variations in pressure at the Martian surface.

It takes a whole team to operate Curiosity's arm. Pictured here are just a few of the team members who put their "muscle" to work every day to help operate Curiosity's arm on Mars.

Before NASA's Curiosity rover landed on Mars, the strata exposed in Mount Sharp were compared to those in the Grand Canyon of the western United States, shown here.

Goal 2: Characterize the climate of Mars

What’s the latest news from Mars? A global dust storm is starting to settle, but still obscures the Martian surface; Curiosity turns six and drills a new rock sample; InSight is more than halfway t...

Grad student Nicholas Boyd (left) and Principal Investigator Ralf Gellert, both of the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada, prepare for the installation of the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer s...

This scene combines images taken by the left-eye camera of the Mast Camera (Mastcam) instrument on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover during the midafternoon, local Mars solar time, of the mission's 526th...

Water, whether liquid or frozen, absorbs neutrons more than other substances. The Detector of Albedo Neutrons on the Mars Science Laboratory rover will use this characteristic to search for subsurf...

On ancient Mars, water carved channels and transported sediments to form fans and deltas within lake basins.

This image shows the landing site of NASA's Curiosity rover and destinations scientists want to investigate.

This image shows the location of the 150-micrometer sieve screen on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, a device used to remove larger particles from samples before delivery to science instruments.

The Rover Environmental Monitoring Station will monitor atmospheric pressure, humidity, wind currents, and ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/INTA (Instituto Naciona...

NASA has selected Gale crater as the landing site for the Mars Science Laboratory mission.

This heart-shaped granite rock was spotted in JPL's Mars Yard just in time for Valentine's Day. Engineers were driving the Earth-bound copy of the Curiosity rover, informally named Maggie, for tes...

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 engineering drawing shows the location of the arm on NASA's Curiosity rover, in addition to the arm's turret, which holds two instruments and three tools.

The Russian-made instrument on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity for detecting water that is adsorbed into soil or bound into shallow underground minerals has fired its 2 millionth pulse of energetic neu...

Clara Ma, winner of the contest to name NASA's Curiosity rover, in 2009 with an engineering model of the rover (left) and as a graduate student in 2019 (right)

An instrument suite that will analyze the chemical ingredients in samples of Martian atmosphere, rocks and soil during the mission of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, is shown here during assembly at N...

This full-resolution image from NASA's Curiosity shows the turret of tools at the end of the rover's extended robotic arm on Aug. 20, 2012. The Navigation Camera captured this view.