Sandy Dunes

About the size of a small toaster, the Radiation Assessment Detector will look skyward and use a stack of silicon detectors and a crystal of cesium iodide to measure galactic cosmic rays and solar ...

With NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) spacecraft sealed inside its payload fairing, the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket rides a tall pillar of smoke and flames as it soars over Space Laun...

Sample Image Through Camera Built for Next Mars Rover

Animation shows NASA's Mars Curiosity rover touching a rock with an instrument on its arm, then stowing the arm and driving on. (No audio)

The Sample Analysis at Mars instrument suite will weigh about 83 pounds (38 kilograms) and make up about half the science payload of the Mars Science Laboratory mission. It is a suite of three inst...

This image of an outcrop at the "Sheepbed" locality, taken by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover with its right Mast Camera (Mastcam), shows well-defined veins filled with whitish minerals, interpreted as...

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...

The ChemCam instrument for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission uses a pulsed laser beam to vaporize a pinhead-size target, producing a flash of light from the ionized material -- plasma -- that ...

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover used its black-and-white navigation cameras to capture panoramas of "Marker Band Valley" at two times of day on April 8. Color was added to a combination of both panoram...

With the addition of four high-resolution Navigation Camera, or Navcam, images, taken on Aug. 18 (Sol 12), Curiosity's 360-degree landing-site panorama now includes the highest point on Mount Sharp...

Since landing on Mars in August 2012, NASA's Curiosity rover has been exploring 3-mile-high Mt. Sharp in Gale Crater.

This is an artist's concept of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory aeroshell capsule as it enters the Martian atmosphere.

On Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, the 197-foot-tall United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket is backdropped by a bright blue sky as the vehicle rolls from the Vertical Integration Facili...

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...

NASA's Curiosity rover and its parachute were spotted by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter as Curiosity descended to the surface on Aug. 5 PDT (Aug. 6 EDT).

Preparation for Testing of Mars Landing Radar

Miyamoto Crater

This video shows an engineering test for NASA's Curiosity rover, which took place during Assembly, Test and Launch Operations (ATLO), a project phase that occurs when all components are integrated,...

Two images from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity rover depicting the change in the color of light illuminating the Martian surface since a dust storm engulfed Gale Crater. The left ima...

This series of images shows the shadow of Phobos as it sweeps over NASA's Curiosity Mars rover and darkens the sunlight on Monday, March 25, 2019 (Sol 2358).

The robotic arm on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity delivered a sample of Martian soil to the rover's observation tray for the first time during the mission's 70th Martian day, or sol (Oct. 16, 2012)

In the Vertical Integration Facility at Space Launch Complex 41, the payload fairing containing NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft was attached to its Atlas V rocket on Nov. 3, 2011.

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

This map traces where NASA's Mars rover Curiosity drove between landing at a site subsequently named "Bradbury Landing," and the position reached during the mission's 123rd Martian day, or sol, (De...

This artist concept features NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover, a mobile robot for investigating Mars' past or present ability to sustain microbial life.