Holden Crater

A Russian-built, neutron-shooting instrument on the Curiosity rover of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission will check for water-bearing minerals in the ground beneath the rover.

The location of a rock target called "Knorr" is indicated on this self-portrait of the Curiosity rover in the "Yellowknife Bay" area.

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.

With NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) spacecraft sealed inside its payload fairing, the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket rides a pillar of smoke and flames as it lifts off from Space Launc...

This map shows the route driven by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover from the "Bradbury Landing" location where it landed in August 2012 (the start of the line in upper right) to a major waypoint called ...

This 360-degree panorama shows evidence of a successful first test drive for NASA's Curiosity rover.

This image, taken with the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera, shows the transition between the "Murray Formation," in which layers are poorly expressed and difficult to tra...

The dark, golf-ball-size object in this composite, colorized view from the ChemCam instrument on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover is a nickel-iron meteorite, as confirmed by analysis using laser pulses...

This photograph of the NASA Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity, was taken during mobility testing on June 3, 2011. The location is inside the Spacecraft Assembly Facility at NASA's Jet Propul...

The 197-foot-tall United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket seems surrounded by lightning masts as it arrives at the launch pad at Space Launch Complex 41 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida...

A conventional X-ray diffraction instrument (left) is the size of a large refrigerator, in contrast to the compact size of the Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument on NASA's Curiosity rover...

This artist's conception of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory portrays use of the rover's ChemCam instrument to identify the chemical composition of a rock sample on the surface of Mars.

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.The images used for the panorama were taken...

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover began close-up investigation of a target called "Marimba," on lower Mount Sharp, during the week preceding the fourth anniversary of the mission's Aug. 6, 2016, landing....

This view of the twilight sky and Martian horizon taken by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover includes Earth as the brightest point of light in the night sky

This wide panorama was taken by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover on Dec. 19, 2019, the 2,620th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. On the righthand foreground is Western Butte; the ridge with a crusty ...

This May 25, 2015, view from the Curiosity rover's Mastcam shows a site where two different types of bedrock meet near "Marias Pass" on Mount Sharp. Pale mudstone in the foreground is like bedrock ...

This view of a test rover at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California results from advance testing of arm positions and camera pointings for taking a low-angle selfie of NASA's Curiosity Mars...

This image shows laser plasmas in a test lab at Los Alamos National Laboratory, N.M., under typical atmospheric pressures on Earth and Mars.

The two donut-shaped tracks make an infinity symbol, and mark the first two drives of NASA's Curiosity rover.

This mosaic of images shows layers of sediment on a boulder-sized rock called "Strathdon," as seen by the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera carried by NASA's Curiosity rover. The images were tak...

Curiosity will have to survive the extreme temperatures of Mars. Is the rover ready? Engineers put it through thermal tests to find out.

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 July 2017 (Sol 1750), and its planned path to additional geologic...

This area at the base of Mount Sharp on Mars includes a pale outcrop, called "Pahrump Hills," that NASA's Curiosity Mars rover investigated from September 2014 to March 2015, and the "Artist's Driv...

This series of images reconstructs the geology of the region around Mars' Mount Sharp, where NASA's Curiosity Mars rover landed and is now driving. The images, taken on Earth, have been altered for...