Replicating Martian Dunes

Mobility Systems Engineer, Matt Heverly, explains how Curiosity's mobility system works to teachers participating the Curiosity Educator Conference at JPL.

The mast camera on the Mars Science Laboratory will capture the Martian terrain in color photos and high-definition video. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

This Dec. 2, 2016, view from the Navigation Camera (Navcam) on the mast of NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover shows rocky ground within view while the rover was working at an intended drilling site cal...

Goddard scientist Jennifer Eigenbrode injected a chemical into a rock sample and then heated the test tube to determine whether the sample-preparation method preserved the sample's molecular struct...

Access Mars allows any member of the public to explore the discoveries of NASA's Curiosity rover.

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).

It takes a whole team to operate Curiosity's arm. Pictured here are just a few of the team members who put their "muscle" to work every day to help operate Curiosity's arm on Mars.

These three versions of the same image taken by the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity illustrate different choices that scientists can make in presenting the colors recorded by t...

Smaller than a penny, the flower-like rock artifact on the left was imaged by NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover using its Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on the end of its robotic arm. 

This 360-degree panorama from NASA's Mars rover Curiosity shows the rocky terrain surrounding it as of its 55th Martian day, or sol, of the mission (Oct. 1, 2012).

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.

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover used its Mastcam instrument to take the 32 individual images that make up this panorama of the outcrop nicknamed “Mont Mercou.” It took a second panorama to create a ste...

This engineering animation depicts the moves that NASA's rover Curiosity made on Sept. 22, 2012, when the rover touched a Martian rock with its robotic arm for the first time. Curiosity examined th...

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 "...

Backdropped by the Atlantic Ocean, the 197-foot-tall United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket rolls toward the launch pad at Space Launch Complex 41 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Ato...

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity used its Mast Camera (Mastcam) to take the images combined into this mosaic of the drill area, called "John Klein."

This artist's illustration shows NASA's four successful Mars rovers (from left to right): Sojourner, Spirit and Opportunity, and Curiosity. The image also shows the upcoming Mars 2020 rover and a h...

Curiosity is the biggest robot explorer ever to rove Mars. How do you power something like that?

On Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, the payload fairing protecting NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) stands atop the 197-foot-tall United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket during rollou...

Scarecrow is a full-scale version of Curiosity, but without the “brains.” Engineers use it to test drive on different types of terrain. In this image, the rover was taken out to the Dumont Dunes in...

The team operating NASA's Curiosity Mars rover uses the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on the rover's arm to check the condition of the wheels at routine intervals.

The graph at right presents information from the NASA Curiosity Mars rover's onboard analysis of rock powder drilled from the "Big Sky" and "Greenhorn" target locations, shown at left.

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

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.

This color image from NASA's Curiosity rover looks south of the rover's landing site on Mars towards Mount Sharp. This is part of a larger, high-resolution color mosaic made from images obtained by...