Holden Crater

This Sept. 25, 2015, view from the Mast Camera on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows a dark sand dune in the middle distance. The rover's examination of dunes on the way toward higher layers of Moun...

In the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, technicians process the backshell for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL).

This image from NASA's Curiosity rover looks south of the rover's landing site on Mars towards Mount Sharp.

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover captured evidence of layers that built up as windblown sand both accumulated and was scoured away at a location nicknamed “Las Claritas.” This image was captured using C...

An engineering model for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory makes its way up a hill in the Mars Yard testing area at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

This stereo view from the Curiosity Mars rover's Navcam shows a 360-degree panorama around the site where the rover spent its 1,000th Martian day, or sol, on Mars. The image appears three-dimension...

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover and tracks from its driving are visible in this view from orbit, acquired on April 11, 2014, by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's ...

Curiosity prepares for a second drilling and a tutorial on the complicated choreography to get the drill sample to her instruments.

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 wide view of the "John Klein" location selected for the first rock drilling by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity is a mosaic taken by Curiosity's right Mast Camera (Mastcam) during the afternoon of ...

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.

Essay Winner's Signature on NASA's Curiosity Rover

This image contributed to an interpretation by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity science team that some of the bright particles on the ground near the rover are native Martian material.

These images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) show a before-and-after comparison of the area where NASA's Curiosity rover landed on Aug. 5 PDT (Aug. 6 EDT).

This June 27, 2014, image from the HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows NASA's Curiosity Mars rover on the rover's landing-ellipse boundary, which is superimposed on the image.

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...

This plot of data from NASA's Mars rover Curiosity shows the variety of gases that were released from sand grains upon heating in the Sample Analysis at Mars instrument, or SAM

How can you communicate with Mars spacecraft when the Sun is in the way? Learn more about 'solar conjunction' in this 60-second video.

Meet the new MSL Rover

Engineers put the rover through a human-made earthquake to make sure nothing breaks on its trip to Mars.

In the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, technicians process the heat shield for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL).

This oblique view of the lower mound in Gale crater on Mars shows an area of top scientific interest for the Mars Science Laboratory mission.

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

These schematic drawings show a top view and a cutaway view of a section of the drill on NASA's Curiosity rover on Mars.

Technicians at the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, put the instrument mast and science boom on NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover, known as C...