Desolate Landscape

Dust devils dance in the distance in this sequence of images taken by the Navigation Camera on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover on Feb. 12, 2017, during the afternoon of the rover's 1,607th Martian day,...

This view from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover covers an area in "Bridger Basin" that includes the locations where the rover drilled a target called "Big Sky" on the missio...

After a rocket-powered descent stage, also known as the sky crane, delivered NASA's Curiosity rover to Mars on Aug. 5 PDT (Aug. 6 EDT), 2012, it flew away and fell to the surface.

A web of shadows stretches across the 197-foot-tall United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket as the early morning sun shines through a metal lightning mast (left) at Space Launch Complex 41 on Cape Ca...

The Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD) instrument on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover monitors the natural radiation environment at the surface of Mars.

Results from Opportunity and Curiosity show Mars could have supported life.

This global map of Mars was acquired on Oct. 28, 2008, by the Mars Color Imager instrument on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. It was acquired during the same season that NASA's Curiosity rover ...

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 Mars Science Laboratory lifts off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.

This is the first image taken by NASA's Curiosity rover, which landed on Mars the evening of Aug. 5 PDT (morning of Aug. 6 EDT).

This plot shows the first-ever look at the deuterium to hydrogen ratio measured from the surface of Mars, as detected by the Sample Analysis at Mars instrument, or SAM, on NASA's Curiosity rover.

Although still nearly eight months from Mars, the Radiation Assessment Detector on NASA's Mars Science Laboratory has begun collecting data that will aid planning of future human missions to Mars.

Two miniature satellites will be hitching a ride to the Red Planet to get a front row seat for InSight 's landing on Mars.

This illustration portrays possible ways methane might be added to Mars' atmosphere (sources) and removed from the atmosphere (sinks). NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has detected fluctuations in metha...

At the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, integration between a rocket-powered descent stage and NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover, known as Cu...

A "scarecrow" rover at NASA's JPL drives over a sensor while testing a new driving algorithm. Engineers created the algorithm to reduce wheel wear on the Mars Curiosity rover.

ASA's Curiosity Mars rover used the Navigation Camera (Navcam) on its mast to catch this look-back eastward at wheel tracks from driving through and past "Dingo Gap" inside Gale Crater.

This photograph of the NASA Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity, was taken during mobility testing on June 3, 2011.

The first demonstration of NASA's MAVEN Mars orbiter's capability to relay data from a Mars surface mission, on Nov. 6, 2014, included this and other images from NASA's Curiosity Mars rover. The im...

The Entry, Descent and Landing team celebrate just moments after news that Curiosity landed safely on Mars.

The Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft separates from the upper stage of its Atlas V launch vehicle and heads on its way to Mars.

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 video, presented at four times actual speed, shows a test using an engineering model of the soil scoop for NASA's Mars rover Curiosity. The scoop dips to about 1.4 inches (3.5 centimeters) dee...

This sequence of images shows a dust-carrying whirlwind, called a dust devil, on lower Mount Sharp inside Gale Crater, as viewed by NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover during the summer afternoon of the ro...

In the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, technicians work beneath NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission aeroshell, (containing the compact car-s...