Desolate Landscape

The area where NASA's Curiosity rover will land on Aug. 5 PDT (Aug. 6 EDT) has a geological diversity that scientists are eager to investigate, as seen in this false-color map based on data from NA...

This view from NASA's Curiosity Mars rover spans 360 degrees, centered southward toward a planned science waypoint at "the Kimberley," with an outcrop of eroded sandstone in the foreground. It comb...

This chart shows increases in the volume of data coming back from NASA's Mars rover Curiosity over recent sols, or Martian days. The rover has the ability to talk directly to Earth, but its data ca...

This computer-generated view based on multiple orbital observations shows Mars' Gale crater as if seen from an aircraft northwest of the crater.

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...

This image shows the location (green) where scientists estimate NASA's Curiosity rover landed on Mars within Gale Crater, based on images from the Mars Descent Imager (MARDI).

This mosaic of images from the Navigation Camera (Navcam) on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity shows the scene from the rover's position on the 376th Martian day, or sol, of the mission (Aug. 27, 2013).

This image is from a series of test images to calibrate the 34-millimeter Mast Camera on NASA's Curiosity rover. It was taken on Aug. 23, 2012 and looks south-southwest from the rover's landing site.

This annotated artists' concept shows the location of all of the Curiosity rover's 17 cameras.

This 360-degree panorama from the Mastcam on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows the rugged surface of 'Naukluft Plateau' plus upper Mount Sharp at right and part of the rim of Gale Crater. The April...

This Dec. 18, 2015, view of the downwind face of "Namib Dune" on Mars covers 360 degrees, including a portion of Mount Sharp on the horizon. The component images were taken by the Mast Camera on NA...

This image produced from software used for planning drives of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity depicts the location and size of the rover when it was driven into position for drilling into rock target "...

This animation depicts the location of the ChemCam instrument at the top of the mast on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity and the field of view of the instrument's camera, called the Remote Micro-Imager....

This image from the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows an example of a type of geometrically distinctive feature that researchers are using Curiosity to exami...

This image shows a globe of Mars with the locations of the four proposed landing sites noted in white font and the locations of prior landed missions in yellow font. Prior landed missions include: ...

An instrument suite that will analyze the chemical ingredients in samples of Martian atmosphere, rocks and soil during the mission of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, is shown here during assembly at N...

This raw-color view from Curiosity's Mastcam shows the rover's drill just after finishing a drilling operation at "Telegraph Peak" on Feb. 24, 2015. Three days later, a fault-protection action by t...

This panorama of a location called "Teal Ridge" was captured on Mars by the Mast Camera, or Mastcam, on NASA's Curiosity rover on June 18, 2019, the 2,440th Martian day, or sol, of the mission.

Gale Crater, where the rover Curiosity of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission will land in August 2012, contains a mountain rising from the crater floor.

On Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, the 197-foot-tall United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket is in place at Space Launch Complex 41 after rolling out from the nearby Vertical Integration...

The landing site for NASA's Mars rover Curiosity was chosen for giving the mission access to examine the lower layers of a mountain inside Gale Crater.

At the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, an overhead crane is being lowered over a rocket-powered descent stage for integration with NASA's Mars Scienc...

Testing of the cruise stage for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory in August 2010 included a session in a facility that simulates the environment found in interplanetary space.

The highest concentration of boron measured on Mars, as of late 2016, is in this mineral vein examined with the ChemCam instrument on NASA's Curiosity rover on Aug, 25, 2016. Orange bars indicate b...

This image shows a close-up of track marks left by NASA's Curiosity rover.