Mars on Earth

This image contributed to an interpretation by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity science team that some of the bright particles on the ground near the rover are native Martian material.

A group of journalists take part in a field trip to learn about the clues hidden in the rock layers with Curiosity Project Scientist, John Grotzinger.

This set of images from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows a fierce dust storm is kicking up on Mars, with rovers on the surface indicated as icons.

After more than a year without the use of the Curiosity Mars rover's drill, engineers have devised a workaround and tested it for the first time on the Red Planet.

This topography map shows a portion of the Gale Crater region on Mars, where NASA's Mars Curiosity rover landed on August 6, 2012.

Clara Ma signs Curiosity

This image shows the first holes into rock drilled by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, with drill tailings around the holes plus piles of powdered rock collected from the deeper hole and later discarde...

This closeup view from NASA's Curiosity rover shows finely layered rocks, deposited by wind long ago as migrating sand dunes.

This video (part 2 of a 4 part series) shows engineers testing a new parachute in the largest wind tunnel on Earth for the Curiosity rover, prior to its landing on Mars in August 2012.

This patch of Martian bedrock, about 2 feet (70 centimeters) across, is finely layered rock with some pea-size inclusions. It lies near the lowest point of the "Pahrump Hills" outcrop, which forms ...

This pair of images from the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity shows the rock target "Cumberland" before and after Curiosity drilled into it to collect a sample for analy...

Emily Eelkema Stough, Tactical Uplink Lead and Jessica Samuels, Engineering Operations Team Chief, pose for the cameras in the "Mars Yard" with Curiosity's ground test model in the background.

The network of cracks in this Martian rock slab called "Old Soaker" may have formed from the drying of a mud layer more than 3 billion years ago.

This image from Curiosity's Mastcam shows inclined beds of sandstone interpreted as the deposits of small deltas fed by rivers flowing down from the Gale Crater rim and building out into a lake whe...

Curiosity captured this 360-degree panorama of a location on Mars called “Teal Ridge” on June 18, 2019. This location is part of a larger region the rover has been exploring called the “clay-bearin...

This image provides an example of the type of data collected by the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument on the Mars Science Laboratory mission's Curiosity rover.

For optimal communications during arrival at Mars, NASA's Mars Science Laboratory, or Curiosity, will launch after Thanksgiving 2011 and land on Mars in August 2012.

This photograph of the NASA Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity, was taken during mobility testing on June 3, 2011. The location is inside the Spacecraft Assembly Facility at NASA's Jet Propul...

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover spotted these finger-like rocks with its Mast Camera, or Mastcam, on May 15, 2022. These likely formed as groundwater trickled through rock in the ancient past, depositi...

This look back at a dune that NASA's Curiosity Mars rover drove across was taken by the rover's Mast Camera (Mastcam) during the 538th Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity's work on Mars (Feb. 9, 2014).

Employees gathered one level above monitor the progress of the protective mesh container known as the "gorilla cage," holding the multi-mission radioisotope thermoelectric generator (MMRTG) for NAS...

After spending six weeks doing science investigations at Rocknest, NASA's Curiosity Mars rover is on the move again to Point Lake and a place to try out the drill.

The Laser-Induced Remote Sensing for Chemistry and Micro-Imaging instrument will identify atomic elements in martian rocks. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/J.-L. Lacour, CEA

This image of NASA's Curiosity rover shows the location of the two components of the Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons instrument.

This June 27, 2014, image from the HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows NASA's Curiosity Mars rover on the rover's landing-ellipse boundary, which is superimposed on the image.