Driving Over Sandy Ripples

NASA and Microsoft have teamed up to create "Destination: Mars," a guided tour of Mars using the same Hololens technology that helps scientists plan the Curiosity rover's activities.

An instrument suite that will analyze the chemical ingredients in samples of Martian atmosphere, rocks and soil during the mission of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, is shown here during assembly at N...

The 197-foot-tall United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket seems surrounded by lightning masts as it arrives at the launch pad at Space Launch Complex 41 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida...

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory, a mobile robot for investigating Mars' past or present ability to sustain microbial life, is in development for a launch opportunity in 2009.

This movie clip shows Phobos, the larger of the two moons of Mars, passing in front of the other Martian moon, Deimos, on Aug. 1, from the perspective of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity.

This view of grains from a sand dune near Christmas Lake, Ore., was taken by a testing twin of the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on NASA's Mars Science Laboratory.

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

NASA's Curiosity rover pinged the ground with neutrons for the first time, a process called active neutron sounding, on Aug. 17, 2012.

This view of the three left wheels of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity combines two images that were taken by the rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) during the 34th Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity'...

Adam Steltzner of JPL holds up a model of a Mars entry capsule.

The Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity acquired close-up views of sands in the "Rocknest" wind drift to document the nature of the material that the rover scooped, sieved ...

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 sequence of images shows a blast zone where the sky crane from NASA's Curiosity rover mission hit the ground after setting the rover down in August 2012, and how that dark scar's appearance ch...

"Vera Rubin Ridge," a favored destination for NASA's Curiosity Mars rover even before the rover landed in 2012, rises near the rover nearly five years later in this panorama from Curiosity's Mast C...

This view of the two moons of Mars comes from a set of images taken by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity as the larger moon, Phobos, passed in front of the smaller one, Deimos, from Curiosity's perspecti...

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity used its navigation camera to take the exposures combined into this stereo view of a wee crater, informally named "Skylab," along the rover's route. The co...

Processes in Mars' surface material can explain why particular xenon (Xe) and krypton (Kr) isotopes are more abundant in the Martian atmosphere than expected, as measured by NASA's Curiosity rover....

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...

Download a PDF of the Mars Science Laboratory Launch Press Kit.

In a shallow depression called "Yellowknife Bay," the NASA Mars rover Curiosity drove to an edge of the feature during the 130th Martian day, or sol, of the mission (Dec. 17, 2012) and used its Nav...

This diagram presents some of the processes and clues related to a long-ago lake on Mars that became stratified, with the shallow water richer in oxidants than deeper water was.

This graphic compares the radiation dose equivalent for several types of experiences, including a calculation for a trip from Earth to Mars based on measurements made by the Radiation Assessment De...

This 360-degree scene shows the surroundings of the location where NASA Mars rover Curiosity arrived on the 59th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's mission on Mars (Oct. 5, 2012).

This April 4, 2014, image from Curiosity's Mastcam looks to the west of a waypoint on the rover's route to Mount Sharp. The mountain lies to the left of the scene. The image shows sets of sandstone...

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