Gale Crater

This 360-degree vista was acquired on Aug. 5, 2016, by the Mastcam on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover as the rover neared features called "Murray Buttes" on lower Mount Sharp. The dark, flat-topped mes...

This picture features some of the women working on the Curiosity rover, taken in the "Mars Yard," a simulated martian landscape right here at JPL.

A test operator in clean-room garb observes rolling of the wheels during the first drive test of NASA's Curiosity rover, on July 23, 2010.

NASA Science missions circle Earth, the Sun, the Moon, Mars and many other destinations within our solar system, including spacecraft that look out even further into our universe. The Science Fleet...

This image of an outcrop at the "Sheepbed" locality, taken by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover with its right Mast Camera (Mastcam), shows well-defined veins filled with whitish minerals, interpreted as...

This mosaic of images from the Navigation Camera (Navcam) on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity shows the terrain to the west from the rover's position on the 528th Martian day, or sol, of the mission (Ja...

Sheri Klug Boonstra, director of the Mars Education Program at Arizona State University, leads a group of teachers through an analytical exercise.

Filled with briny lakes, the Quisquiro salt flat in South America's Altiplano represents the kind of landscape that scientists think may have existed in Gale Crater, which NASA's Curiosity rover is...

Clara Ma, winner of the Mars Science Laboratory naming contest.

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 color panorama shows a 360-degree view of the landing site of NASA's Curiosity rover, including the highest part of Mount Sharp visible to the rover. That part of Mount Sharp is approximately ...

This set of drawings depicts cross sections of the "Yellowknife Bay" area of Mars' Gale Crater at three points in time going back more than 80 million years (>80 Ma).

This May 11, 2016, self-portrait of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows the vehicle at the "Okoruso" drilling site on lower Mount Sharp's "Naukluft Plateau." The scene is a mosaic of multiple images...

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...

Members of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover mission team photographed themselves on March 20, 2020, the first day the entire mission team worked remotely from home. 

The team developing NASA's Mars Science Laboratory calls this test rover "Scarecrow" because the vehicle does not include a computer brain. Mobility engineers use this test rover to evaluate mobili...

This map shows the route on lower Mount Sharp that NASA's Curiosity followed in April and early May 2015, in the context of the surrounding terrain. Numbers along the route identify the sol, or Ma...

In the clean room at JPL, engineers gather around the base of Curiosity's "neck" (the Mast) as they slowly lower it into place for attachment to the rover’s "body" (the Wet Electronics Box, or "WEB").

ASA's Curiosity Mars rover used the Navigation Camera (Navcam) on its mast to catch this look-back eastward at wheel tracks from driving through and past "Dingo Gap" inside Gale Crater.

This panorama is a mosaic of images taken by the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on the NASA Mars rover Curiosity during the 106th Martian day, or sol, of the mission (Nov. 22, 2012).

Illustrations of NASA's Curiosity and Mars 2020 rovers. While the newest rover borrows from Curiosity's design, each has its own role in the ongoing exploration of Mars and the search for ancient l...

This image, taken with the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera, shows distinct bands of alternating tone and brightness within the "Murray Formation" on Mars.

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover took this selfie on May 12, 2019 (the 2,405th Martian day, or sol, of the mission). To the lower-left of the rover are its two recent drill holes, at targets called "Abe...

The series of nine images making up this animation were taken by the rear Hazard-Avoidance Camera (rear Hazcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover as the rover drove over a dune spanning "Dingo Gap" on...

The "Shaler" outcrop is dramatically layered, as seen in this mosaic of telephoto images from the right Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity.