Dunes Obstacle Course

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has clocked more than a decade of service at the Red Planet and has yielded scientific discoveries and magnificent views of a distant world. These images taken by...

The Curiosity Mars Descent Imager (MARDI) captured the rover's descent to the surface of the Red Planet. The instrument shot 4 fps video from heatshield separation to the ground. (No audio)

At the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, technicians using an overhead crane, move the aeroshell, a component of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), ...

This graphic maps the first 14 sites where NASA's Curiosity Mars rover collected rock or soil samples for analysis using the rover's onboard laboratory. It also presents images of the drilled holes...

At the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the "back shell powered descent vehicle" configuration, containing NASA's Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curio...

This video of thumbnail images from the Mars Descent Imager (MARDI) on NASA's Curiosity rover shows the heat shield dropping away from the rover on Aug. 5 PDT (Aug. 6 EDT). It covers the first 25 s...

This Dec. 17, 2015, view combines multiple images from the telephoto-lens camera of the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover to reveal fine details of the downwind face of "Namib Du...

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

This image from NASA's Curiosity rover shows the great diversity of grains found on the surface of a Martian rock.

This northeast-facing view from the lower edge of the pale "Pahrump Hills" outcrop at the base of Mount Sharp includes wind-sculpted ripples of sand and dust in the middle ground. It was taken by C...

Researchers prepare for a test of the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument that will fly on NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission. The instrument uses a pulsed laser beam to vaporize a pinhea...

The four main pieces of hardware that arrived on Mars with NASA's Curiosity rover were spotted by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

This Mars Descent Imager (MARDI) camera will fly on the Curiosity rover of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission.

At the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, integration between a rocket-powered descent stage and NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover, known as Cu...

This is an artist's concept of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft approaching Mars.

Curiosity gets new software and new capabilities for the long trek to Mt. Sharp.

A History of Exobiology and Astrobiology at NASA 

An image taken at the "Hidden Valley" site, en-route to Mount Sharp, by NASA's Curiosity rover.

The sequence of six images in this animation shows sunspots as viewed by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover from April 4 to April 15, 2015. From Mars, the rover was in position to see the opposite side of...

This stereo view from the Navigation Camera (Navcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows a 360-degree panorama around the location where the rover spent its 1,000th Martian day, or sol, on Mars. T...

This self-portrait shows the deck of NASA's Curiosity rover from the rover's Navigation camera.

Mastcam 34: Shorter Focal-Length Eye of Mast Camera Pair for Mars Rover

On Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, the 197-foot-tall United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket arrives on the launch pad at Space Launch Complex-41, situated near the Atlantic Ocean.

The sparks that appear on the baseball-sized rock result from the laser of the ChemCam instrument on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover hitting the rock. (No audio)

Mars Science Laboratory team member Jessica Samuels gives a progress report on Curiosity's first days on Mars.