Replicating Martian Dunes

This movie begins with an expansive 360-degree view from NASA's Curiosity rover, showing the surrounding terrain within Gale Crater, then zooms in on the rover's deck. The full-resolution images we...

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

.

This graph shows the ratio of concentrations of several elements in four different pairs of targets examined by Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) instruments on NASA Mars rovers Curiosity an...

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.

Holden Crater

Half of the Atlas V payload fairing for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission is lifted into a vertical position in the airlock of the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA's Kennedy ...

The rippled surface of the first Martian sand dune ever studied up close fills this Nov. 27, 2015, view of "High Dune" from the Mast Camera on NASA's Curiosity rover. This site is part of the "Bagn...

The straight lines in Curiosity's zigzag track marks are Morse code for JPL, which is short for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., where the rover was built and the mission is ma...

A sweeping panorama combining 33 telephoto images into one Martian vista presents details of several types of terrain visible on Mount Sharp from a location along the route of NASA's Curiosity Mars...

This animation and still image of comet C/2013 A1 Siding Spring were taken by the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover as the comet passed near the red planet on Oct. 19, 2014.

This 360-degree panorama shows the "Marias Pass" area, at center, and part of the slope that NASA's Curiosity Mars rover climbed to get there, at right.

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover used its Mast Camera, or Mastcam, to capture this mound of rock nicknamed “East Cliffs” on May 7, 2022, the 3,466th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. 

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...

This mosaic, taken with the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, shows the planned route (in yellow) of NASA's Curiosity rover from "Pah...

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...

Southern Meridiani

Rhythmic patterns of sedimentary layering in Danielson Crater on Mars result from periodic changes in climate related to changes in tilt of the planet.

This is an artist's concept of the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover parachute system.

This closeup view from NASA's Curiosity rover shows finely layered rocks, deposited by wind long ago as migrating sand dunes.

The area where NASA's Curiosity rover will land on Aug. 5 PDT (Aug. 6 EDT) has a geological diversity that scientists are eager to investigate, as seen in this false-color map based on data from NA...

A group watching motions of an engineering model of the camera mast for NASA's Mars rover Curiosity on March 5, 2010, includes moviemaker James Cameron (right).

This view shows the patch of veined, flat-lying rock selected as the first drilling site for NASA's Mars rover Curiosity.

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).

Curiosity is at Point Lake on Mars and will snap pictures to send home. Find out more about the rover's 17 cameras, including why some shoot in color and others others take black-and-white images.