Desolate Landscape

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

Mars rover Curiosity, the centerpiece of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission, is coming together for extensive testing prior to its late 2011 launch.

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...

Curiosity is the biggest robot explorer ever to rove Mars. How do you power something like that?

The two main parts of the ChemCam laser instrument for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission are shown in this combined image.

This image shows inclined beds characteristic of delta deposits where a stream entered a lake, but at a higher elevation and farther south than other delta deposits north of Mount Sharp. This sugge...

View of the landscape to the north of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity acquired by the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on the afternoon of the first day after landing

A sweeping panorama combining 33 telephoto images into one Martian vista presents details of several types of terrain visible on Mount Sharp from a location along the route of NASA's Curiosity Mars...

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 130th Martian day, or sol, (De...

This small ridge, about 3 feet long, appears to resist wind erosion more than the flatter plates around it. Such differences are among the traits NASA's Curiosity Mars rover is examining at selecte...

These two views from NASA’s Curiosity rover, acquired specifically to measure the amount of dust inside Gale Crater, show that dust has increased over three days from a major Martian dust storm.

Two instruments at the end of the robotic arm on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity will use calibration targets attached to a shoulder joint of the arm.

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

Side-by-side images depict NASA's Curiosity rover (left) and a moon buggy driven during the Apollo 16 mission.

In this image from NASA's Curiosity Mars rover looking up the ramp at the northeastern end of "Hidden Valley," a pale outcrop including drilling target "Bonanza King" is at the center of the scene.

Like a human working in a radiation environment, NASA's Curiosity rover carries its own version of a dosimeter to measure radiation from outer space and the sun.

This set of images illustrates the twin cameras of the Mast Camera (Mastcam) instrument on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover (upper left), the Mastcam calibration target (lower center), and the locations...

This artists concept of MSL is a still from the MSL Mission Overview video demonstrating the ChemCam instrument.

The series of nine images making up this animation were taken by the rear Hazard-Avoidance Camera (rear Hazcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover as the rover drove over a dune spanning "Dingo Gap" on...

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...

The Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera at the end of the robotic arm of NASA's Curiosity rover will use a calibration target attached to a shoulder joint of the arm.

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.

A shiny-looking Martian rock is visible in this image taken by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity's Mast Camera (Mastcam) during the mission's 173rd Martian day, or sol (Jan. 30, 2013).

This image is the first high-resolution color mosaic from NASA's Curiosity rover, showing the geological environment around the rover's landing site in Gale Crater on Mars.

This animation of NASA's Curiosity rover shows the complicated suite of operations involved in conducting the rover's first rock sample drilling on Mars and transferring the sample to the rover's s...