Mars on Earth

This map shows the route driven by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity through the 56th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's mission on Mars (Oct. 2, 2012).

This image shows the wall of a scuffmark NASA's Curiosity made in a windblown ripple of Martian sand with its wheel.

This view of the twilight sky and Martian horizon taken by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover includes Earth as the brightest point of light in the night sky

The two donut-shaped tracks make an infinity symbol, and mark the first two drives of NASA's Curiosity rover.

This view of channels on Mars came from NASA's Mariner 9 orbiter. In 1971, Mariner 9 became the first spacecraft to enter orbit around Mars.

This computer-generated view depicts part of Mars at the boundary between darkness and daylight, with an area including Gale Crater beginning to catch morning light.

As of June 2012, the target landing area for Curiosity, the rover of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission, is the ellipse marked on this image. The ellipse is about 12 miles long and 4 miles wide...

Southern Meridiani

Late last night, in the morning hours of Aug. 6, as NASA's Curiosity rover fell to the surface of Mars, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) captured an image of the rover gliding on its parach...

This Dec. 5, 2015, view of the undisturbed surface of a Martian sand dune called "High Dune" shows coarse grains remaining on the surface after wind removal of smaller particles. The image covers a...

This 360-degree panorama was taken on Aug. 9 by NASA's Curiosity rover at its location on Vera Rubin Ridge. 

The Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) instrument on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity detects even very small amounts of water in the ground beneath the rover, primarily water bound into the crystal struc...

This engineering drawing shows the arm on NASA's Curiosity's rover in its "ready- for-action" position, or "ready out" as engineers say, in addition to the position it assumes to drop off samples.

Curiosity will spend the holidays at a location on Mars dubbed "Grandma's House."

This portion of a color mosaic taken by NASA's Mars Curiosity rover shows strata exposed along the margins of the valleys in the "Pahrump Hills" region on Mars.

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 oblique, southward-looking view of Gale crater shows the landing site and the mound of layered rocks that NASA's Mars Science Laboratory will investigate.

This right-eye member of a stereo pair of images from the Navigation Camera (Navcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows a full 360-degree view of the rover's surroundings at the site where it fir...

President Barack Obama talks on the phone with NASA's Curiosity Mars rover team aboard Air Force One during a flight to Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, Aug. 13, 2012.

NASA's Curiosity rover uses SAM to make the most sensitive measurements ever to search for methane gas on the red planet.

This image, taken with the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera, shows the transition between the "Murray Formation," in which layers are poorly expressed and difficult to tra...

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover conducted a test on Oct. 17, 2017, as part of the rover team's development of a new way to use the rover's drill. This image from Curiosity's front Hazcam shows the dril...

These images from the NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show several impact scars on Mars made by pieces of the NASA Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft that the spacecraft shed just before entering ...

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...

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