Replicating Martian Dunes

This image shows engineers' refinements of where NASA's Curiosity rover will enter the atmosphere of Mars on Aug. 5 PDT (Aug. 6 EDT).

This is the left-eye member of a stereo pair of images of the Mars Science Laboratory mission's rover, Curiosity.

Details such as the shadow of the mast on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity appear in an image taken Aug. 17, 2012, by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconn...

This image illustrates the principals of a technique called "laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy," which the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument will use on Mars.

Guided tour of the NASA Curiosity Mars rover's flight hardware at Kennedy Space Center.

Curiosity Project Scientist Ashwin Vasavada gives a descriptive tour of the Mars rover's view in Gale Crater. The white-balanced scene looks back over the journey so far.

This image produced from software used for planning drives of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity depicts the location and size of the rover when it was driven into position for drilling into rock target "...

NASA's Curiosity rover and its parachute were spotted by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter as Curiosity descended to the surface on Aug. 5 PDT (Aug. 6 EDT).

Mawrth Vallis

This animation of NASA's Curiosity rover shows the complicated suite of operations involved in conducting the rover's first rock sample drilling on Mars and transferring the sample to the rover's s...

This view from the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on the arm of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows a combination of dark and light material within a mineral vein at a site called "Garden City" on low...

As of June 2012, the target landing area for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission is the ellipse marked on this image of Gale Crater.

This small ridge, about 3 feet long, appears to resist wind erosion more than the flatter plates around it. Such differences are among the traits NASA's Curiosity Mars rover is examining at selecte...

This artist's concept depicts the moment that NASA's Curiosity rover touches down onto the Martian surface.

About the size of a small SUV, NASA's Curiosity rover is well equipped for a tour of Gale Crater on Mars.

In this Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter view of the Curiosity rover mission's waypoint called "the Kimberley," the red dot indicates the location of a sandstone target, "Windjana," selected for close-u...

The Curiosity rover has taught us a lot about the history of Mars and its potential to support life. Take a tour of its landing site, Gale Crater.

In the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, technicians work beneath NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission aeroshell, (containing the compact car-s...

This animated image blinks two versions of a May 11, 2016, selfie of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover at a drilled sample site called "Okoruso." In one version, cameras atop the rover's mast face the ar...

Examination of a calcium sulfate vein called "Diyogha" by the ChemCam instrument on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover found boron, sodium and chlorine. An image from the rover's Mastcam, at left, provide...

This side-by-side comparison shows the X-ray diffraction patterns of two different samples collected from the Martian surface by NASA's Curiosity rover.

Where were you when Curiosity landed

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

This raw image of "Tintina," a broken rock fragment in a rover wheel track, was taken by Curiosity's Mast Camera (Mastcam).

This image from NASA's Curiosity Rover shows a high-resolution view of an area that is known as Goulburn Scour, a set of rocks blasted by the engines of Curiosity's descent stage on Mars.