Sandy Dunes

This image of terrain inside Mars' Gale Crater and the inset of the calibration target for the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity illustrate how false color can be used to make di...

With students and NASA space shuttle astronaut Leland Melvin looking on, musical artist will.i.am posts a tweet soon after his song "Reach for the Stars" was beamed back from the Curiosity Mars rov...

Scientist Katie Stack Morgan examines rover images on her computer. Images, even 3-D stereo views, lack a natural sense of depth that human vision employs to understand spatial relationships.

This animation shows how the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera at the end of the arm of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity was positioned for taking multiple images that were later combined into a self...

A test operator in clean-room garb holds umbilical cables for NASA's Mars rover Curiosity during the rover's first drive test, on July 23, 2010.

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

This self-portrait of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows the vehicle at the "Mojave" site, where its drill collected the mission's second taste of Mount Sharp. The scene combines dozens of images ta...

This stereo image from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity shows a rock outcrop called "Hottah," cited as evidence for vigorous flow of water in a long-ago Martian stream. The ...

This stereo landscape scene from NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows rows of rocks in the foreground and Mount Sharp on the horizon. It appears three dimensional when viewed through red-blue glasses ...

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...

Ashwin Vasavada of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, became the project scientist for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Project in January 2015.

Mars Science Laboratory mission scientists, flight controllers, managers and administrators raise their hands to a cheering crowd at a news conference following the successful landing of NASA’s Cur...

This diagram depicts a vertical cross section through geological layers deposited by rivers, deltas and lakes. Deposits from a series of successive deltas build out increasingly high in elevation a...

This movie begins with an expansive 360-degree view from NASA's Curiosity rover, showing the surrounding terrain within Gale Crater, then zooms in on the rover's deck. The full-resolution images we...

This artist concept features NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover along with an illustrated astronaut bird.

Goal 2: Characterize the climate of Mars

With NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) spacecraft sealed inside its payload fairing, the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket rides smoke and flames as it rises from the launch pad at Space Lau...

Goal1: Determine whether life ever arose on Mars

This heart-shaped granite rock was spotted in JPL's Mars Yard just in time for Valentine's Day. Engineers were driving the Earth-bound copy of the Curiosity rover, informally named Maggie, for tes...

Images taken before and after NASA's Curiosity rover shot its laser 50 times are shown here.

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has caught the first image of asteroids taken from the surface of Mars. The image includes two asteroids, Ceres and Vesta. This version includes Mars' moon Deimos in a c...

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover, known as Curiosity, arrives at the Shuttle Landing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard an Air Force C-17 cargo plane.

As NASA's Curiosity heads to Mount Sharp, the rover is using autonomous navigation to pick the best route.

This image shows the calibration target for the Chemistry and Camera instrument on NASA's Curiosity rover before it was installed on the rover and readied for launch.

This mosaic of images from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) instrument on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows a series of sedimentary deposits in the Glenelg area of Gale Crater, from a perspective in Yello...