Miyamoto Crater

Curiosity's "eyes" (the Mastcam) are shrouded in a silvery material, awaiting their first look around the clean room at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where the rover is being built.

Many members of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Project, which operates the Curiosity rover on Mars, gathered for this 2016 team photo with a test rover in the "Mars Yard" at NASA's Jet Propulsion L...

The nodule in the center of this March 10, 2016, image from the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows individual grains of sand and (on the right) laminations from the ...

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

Since landing on Mars in August 2012, NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has fired the laser on its Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument more than 100,000 times at rock and soil targets up to about 2...

Engineers test the Scarecrow rover on a dunes obstacle course. This test was done in the Dumont Dunes in California's Mojave Desert, near Death Valley.

This image is the first high-resolution color mosaic from NASA's Curiosity rover, showing the geological environment around the rover's landing site in Gale Crater on Mars.

This movie clip shows the larger of Mars' two moons, Phobos, passing in front of the smaller Martian moon, Deimos, as observed by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity.

Technicians and engineers in clean-room garb monitor the first drive test of NASA's Curiosity rover, on July 23, 2010.

The extended robotic arm of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity can be seen in this mosaic of full-resolution images from Curiosity's Navigation camera (Navcam). Curiosity extended its arm on Aug. 20, 2012.

This panorama combining images taken on Feb. 10, 2014, by the Navigation Camera (Navcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover looks back to where the rover crossed a dune at "Dingo Gap" four days earlier...

This pair of drawings depicts the same location at Gale Crater on at two points in time: now and billions of years ago. Water moving beneath the ground, as well as water above the surface in ancien...

This view from Curiosity shows a dramatic hillside outcrop with sandstone layers that scientists refer to as "cross-bedding."

This series of pie charts shows similarities and differences in the mineral composition of mudstone at 10 sites where NASA's Curiosity Mars rover collected rock-powder samples and analyzed them wit...

In this season 4 finale, Gentry Lee and Rob Manning reveal how surprises, hidden flaws, and uncertainties have always been a part of rovers and the exploration of Mars.

This sequence of images from the Front Hazard-Avoidance Camera on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity shows the rover drilling into rock target "Cumberland." The drilling was performed during the 279th Ma...

This diagram and the one at PIA16917 illustrate how the Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) instrument on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover detects hydrogen in the ground beneath the rover.

So, you want to study Mars with a lander or rover - but where exactly do you send it? Learn how scientists and engineers tackle this question in this 60-second video from NASA's Jet Propulsion Labo...

This image from the front Hazcam on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows the rover's drill in place during a test of whether the rock beneath it, "Bonanza King," would be an acceptable target for dril...

Scientists get closer to selecting a landing site for the Curiosity rover.

Some of the women working on NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Project, which built and operates the Curiosity Mars rover, gathered for this photo in the Mars Yard used for rover testing at NASA's Jet...

This view of a Martian rock called "Rocknest 3" combines four images taken by the right-eye camera of the Mast Camera (Mastcam) instrument, which has a telephoto, 100-millimeter-focal-length lens.

This March 25, 2014, view from the Mastcam on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover looks southward at the Kimberley waypoint. In the foreground, multiple sandstone beds show systematic inclination to the so...

This view of channels on Mars came from NASA's Mariner 9 orbiter. In 1971, Mariner 9 became the first spacecraft to enter orbit around Mars.

Amanda Steffy and Rob Sullivan help shape a course of sand ripples for the Scarecrow rover to drive over. This test was done in the Dumont Dunes in California's Mojave Desert, near Death Valley.