Desolate Landscape

NASA's Curiosity rover found evidence for an ancient, flowing stream on Mars at a few sites, including the rock outcrop pictured here, which the science team has named "Hottah" after Hottah Lake in...

This artists concept of MSL is a still from the MSL Mission Overview video. It shows MSL on the surface of Mars.

This image taken by the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity shows the texture of the patch of flat-lying bedrock called "Cumberland," which was the mission's second target ...

After four years on Mars, Curiosity rover and her operations team are now seasoned explorers, anxious to climb to greater heights on Mount Sharp.

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.

Curiosity viewed sloping buttes and layered outcrops as it exited the "Murray Buttes" region on lower Mount Sharp, Sept. 9, 2016.

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover examined both the "Greenhorn" and "Big Sky" targets with the rover's Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) instrument. Greenhorn is located within an altered fracture...

NASA has selected Gale crater as the landing site for the Mars Science Laboratory mission.

Data from the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) instrument on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity show an unusual enrichment of silicon in the rocks dubbed "Wildrose" and "Bonanza King,"

These six images from NASA's Mars rover Curiosity show the two moons of Mars moments before (left three) and after (right three) the larger moon, Phobos, occulted Deimos on Aug. 1, 2013.

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

This color thumbnail image was obtained by NASA's Curiosity rover during its descent to the surface of Mars on Aug. 5 PDT (Aug. 6 EDT).

The men and women behind the dramatic landing of NASA's Curiosity rover on Mars in August 2012 were honored with the 2013 Robert J. Collier Trophy from the National Aeronautics Association.

This pair of images shows a "bite mark" where NASA's Curiosity rover scooped up some Martian soil (left), and the scoop carrying soil.

This map shows the route on lower Mount Sharp that NASA's Curiosity followed between April 19, 2015, and Nov. 5, 2015. During this period the mission investigated silica-rich rock targets includin...

This view from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows a network of two-tone mineral veins at an area called "Garden City" on lower Mount Sharp.

The graph at right presents information from the NASA Curiosity Mars rover's onboard analysis of rock powder drilled from the "Buckskin" target location, shown at left.

The entry, descent and landing team of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory project received the 2013 Trophy for Current Achievement from the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum on April 24, 2013.

This is a view of the third (left) and fourth (right) trenches made by the 1.6-inch-wide (4-centimeter-wide) scoop on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity in October 2012.

This view shows the path and some key places in a survey of the "Pahrump Hills" outcrop by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover in autumn of 2014.

This image from the Navigation Camera on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows wheel tracks printed by the rover as it drove on the sandy floor of a lowland called "Hidden Valley" on the route toward M...

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity heads on the long journey to the mission's main destination, Mount Sharp.

This animation shows a proposed route up Mount Sharp that NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover could follow in the future. “Rafael Navarro Mountain” is marked along the way.

This engineering animation depicts the moves that NASA's rover Curiosity made on Sept. 22, 2012, when the rover touched a Martian rock with its robotic arm for the first time. Curiosity examined th...

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