Gale Crater

The Mars Hand Lens Imager will provide close-up views of microbial-size features. Image credit: NASA/JPL/MSSS

The hills and troughs in this little valley, carved between a ridge and cliffs higher up Mount Sharp, almost look like undulating waves. The Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover cap...

The percussion drill in the turret of tools at the end of the robotic arm of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has been positioned in contact with the rock surface in this image from the rover's front Ha...

Send Your Name to Mars microchip location, taken prior to the launch of NASA's Mars Curiosity Rover. More than 1.2 million names were submitted on our web site over a one year period! Some 20,000 ...

Curiosity will spend the holidays at a location on Mars dubbed "Grandma's House."

This is the right-eye member of a stereo pair of images of the Mars Science Laboratory mission's rover, Curiosity.

In this image, the Mars Science Laboratory Project Science Group, consisting of 11 men and 1 woman, are climbing up a dusty trail in New Mexico. Wearing casual hiking clothes and hats, they are cli...

This Dec. 2, 2016, view from the Navigation Camera (Navcam) on the mast of NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover shows rocky ground within view while the rover was working at an intended drilling site cal...

An in-flight camera check on NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft turned on illumination sources that are part of the Curiosity rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) instrument.

This map shows the route driven by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover from the location where it landed in August 2012 to its location in September 2016 at "Murray Buttes," and the path planned for reachi...

This image is from a test series used to characterize the 100-millimeter Mast Camera on NASA's Curiosity rover. It was taken on Aug. 23, 2012, and looks south-southwest from the rover's landing site.

This is the first image taken by NASA's Curiosity rover, which landed on Mars the evening of Aug. 5 PDT (morning of Aug. 6 EDT).

On Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, the payload fairing protecting NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) stands atop the 197-foot-tall United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket during rollou...

This image from the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity shows a small bright object on the ground beside the rover at the "Rocknest" site.

This engineering drawing shows the arm on NASA's Curiosity's rover in its "ready- for-action" position, or "ready out" as engineers say, in addition to the position it assumes to drop off samples.

Time-lapse movie of the NASA Mars Curiosity rover's last days in the clean room before being shipped to Florida for launch. (Audio: music only)

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

This set of images compares the Link outcrop of rocks on Mars (left) with similar rocks seen on Earth (right).

This video (part 3 of a 4 part series) shows engineers testing a new parachute in the largest wind tunnel on Earth for the Curiosity rover prior to its landing on August 2012.

This view from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows two scales of ripples, plus other textures, in an area where the mission examined a linear-shaped dune in the Bagnold d...

The left Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity took this image of Curiosity's sample-processing and delivery tool just after the tool delivered a portion of powdered rock into the ro...

A viewpoint on "Vera Rubin Ridge" provided NASA's Curiosity Mars rover this detailed look back over the area where it began its mission inside Gale Crater, plus more-distant features of the crater....

This image shows changes in the target landing area for Curiosity, the rover of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory project.

This small ridge, about 3 feet long, appears to resist wind erosion more than the flatter plates around it. Such differences are among the traits NASA's Curiosity Mars rover is examining at selecte...

The rim of Gale Crater is visible in the distance, through the dusty haze, in this Curiosity view of a sloping hillside on Mount Sharp