Sandy Dunes

This image from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows a portion of the pale rock outcrop that includes the "Bonanza King" target chosen for evaluation as the mission's four...

Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, left, and Erisa Hines of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, speak to members of the news media during a preview of the new "Destination: Mars...

No bones about it! Seen by Mars rover Curiosity using its MastCam, this Mars rock may look like a femur thigh bone. Mission science team members think its shape is likely sculpted by erosion, eithe...

This graphic shows how navigators steering NASA's Mars Science Laboratory capsule - with the Curiosity rover tucked inside - are aiming for a pinpoint location above Mars. They liken it to threadin...

In the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, technicians process the heat shield for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL).

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

This full-resolution image shows one of the first views from NASA's Curiosity rover, which landed on Mars the evening of Aug. 5 PDT (early morning hours Aug. 6 EDT).

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...

The 70m antenna at Goldstone, California against the background of the Mojave desert.

A lunar eclipse, a solar eclipse and Mars has a close encounter with a comet.

A 3D, augmented reality model of NASA's Curiosity rover shares a scene with a real life model of the rover in a view taken with NASA's Spacecraft 3D app.

This image from the NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows an impact scar on Mars made by pieces of the NASA Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft that the spacecraft shed just before entering the Mar...

In this image, a large, six-wheeled rover sits on a concrete floor in a laboratory against a light-blue background. The rover's 'legs,' or mobility system are a medium blue color and the large, cle...

Curiosity's "eyes" (the Mastcam) are shrouded in a silvery material, awaiting their first look around the clean room at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where the rover is being built.

This diagram depicts rivers entering a lake. Where the water's flow decelerates, sediments drop out, and a delta forms, depositing a prism of sediment that tapers out toward the lake's interior. Pr...

This map shows the route driven by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover from the location where it landed in August 2012 to the "Pahrump Hills" outcrop at the base of Mount Sharp.

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity studied layers in the Burns Cliff slope of Endurance Crater in 2004.

The Mars Science Laboratory flight system will consist of four major elements in three distinct phases (from left): the cruise stage, the aeroshell (heatshield and backshell), the descent stage, an...

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 Sept. 16, 2017, image from the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows effects of using the rover's wire-bristled Dust Removal Tool on a rock target called "C...

This engineering drawing shows the five devices that make up the turret at the end of the arm on NASA's Curiosity rover.

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has driven within robotic-arm's reach of the sandstone slab at the center of this April 23 view from the rover's Mast Camera.

This video steps viewers through a portion of the choreography needed to land NASA's Curiosity rover on Mars. It starts with a computer simulation from NASA's Eyes on the Solar System program and ...

This screen grab shows a sample - not actual data - of the kinds of Mars weather reports we will be getting from NASA's Curiosity rover