Nili Fossae Trough

A June 2012 revision of the landing target area for Curiosity, the big rover of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission, reduces the area's size.

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover team wraps up its scientific study at Rocknest.

On Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, the 197-foot-tall United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket rolls to the launch pad at Space Launch Complex 41.

Left and right eyes of the Navigation Camera (Navcam) in NASA's Curiosity Mars rover took the dozens of images combined into this stereo scene of the rover and its surroundings. The component image...

This image shows the first holes into rock drilled by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, with drill tailings around the holes plus piles of powdered rock collected from the deeper hole and later discarde...

How a Martian mountain came to be: the story behind Curiosity's current location on Mars.

Engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., on the day of NASA's Curiosity rover landing on the Red Planet. The rover touched down on Mars the evening of Aug. 5 PDT (morning ...

This map shows where NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has driven since landing at a site subsequently named "Bradbury Landing," and traveling to an overlook position near beside "Point Lake," in drives ...

The goosebump-like features in the center of this image were formed by water billions of years ago. NASA's Curiosity Mars rover discovered them as it crested the slope of "Greenheugh Pediment" on F...

After an activity called the "mini drill test" by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, the rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera recorded this close-up view of the results during the 180th Martian d...

This computer-generated view based on multiple orbital observations shows Mars' Gale crater as if seen from an aircraft north of the crater.

Researchers have used the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) instrument on the robotic arm of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity to determine elemental compositions of rock surfaces at several targe...

This artists concept of MSL is a still from the MSL Mission Overview video. It shows MSL on the surface of Mars.

This image shows the underside of a grey F/A-18 jet with dark stripes flying against a blue sky from quite a distance away. Underneath the jet is a pod carrying sensors that measure the jet's tempe...

A group of engineers and technicians prepare to mate the rover (tucked inside its backshell and turned upside-down on the left) to its protective heatshield, the black disk on the right.

Five years of Martian discoveries after seven minutes of terror.

The Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) is a powerful set of three instruments onboard the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Curiosity rover that work together to investigate the chemistry of the Martian sur...

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

This animation shows the major mission events of the Curiosity rover's landing on Mars. (Audio: music and mechanical sounds only)

This image shows the tracks left by NASA's Curiosity rover on Aug. 22, 2012, as it completed its first test drive on Mars.

This scene shows NASA's Curiosity Mars rover at a location called "Windjana," where the rover found rocks containing manganese-oxide minerals, which require abundant water and strongly oxidizing co...

Sample Image Through Camera Built for Next Mars Rover

This view shows nodules exposed in sandstone that is part of the Stimson geological unit on Mount Sharp, Mars. The nodules can be seen to consist of grains of sand cemented together.

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 ...

Two instruments at the end of the robotic arm on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity will use calibration targets attached to a shoulder joint of the arm.