Mars Exploration Rover team members with rover

This image from Opportunity's panoramic camera features the remains of the heat shield that protected the rover from temperatures of up to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit as it made its way through the ma...

On the horizon in the right half of this panoramic view is an area of Mars informally named "Matijevic Hill," in commemoration of an influential rover-team leader.

Researchers used the panoramic camera (Pancam) on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity to capture this 10-second-exposure view of comet C/2013 A1 Siding Spring as it passed near Mars on Oct. 1...

This graph compares the elemental composition of typical soils at three landing regions on Mars.

From left: Dave Lavery, program executive for Solar System Exploration at NASA Headquarters, Dr. Ed Weiler, associate administrator, Office of Space Science, NASA Headquarters, Pete Theisinger, (fo...

The enhanced-color image taken by the microscopic imager on the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit shows the rock dubbed "Mazatzal" after a portion of its surface was brushed clean by the rover's rock a...

The rover launch site at Cape Canaveral, Florida is the "Lightning Capital of the United States." Launching a spacecraft safely is challenging enough. Learn how the Force of Nature intercepted the ...

Textured rows on the ground in this portion of "Perseverance Valley" are under investigation by NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity, which used its Navigation Camera to take the component ima...

Two spacecraft engineers join a grouping of vehicles providing a comparison of three generations of Mars rovers developed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. The setting is JPL's ...

NASA's Curiosity finds crystals, Opportunity celebrates her 5,000th day on Mars and the MarCO smallsats get solar arrays.

This Martian scene shows contrasting textures and colors of "Hinners Point," at the northern edge of "Marathon Valley," and swirling reddish zones on the valley floor to the left.

This image shows the Spirit rover's landing site, the Columbia Memorial Station, at Gusev Crater, Mars.

A dance-step pattern is visible in the wheel tracks near the left edge of this scene recorded in stereo by the navigation camera on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity during the 2,554th Mart...

A "Martian mechanic" checks beneath the completely deployed Rover 1 lander. Atop the lander is Rover 1 with its wheels and solar arrays in the stowed position.

This Aug. 15, 2014, scene from the Pancam on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity looks back toward part of the west rim of Endeavour Crater that the rover drove along, heading southward, duri...

This image is an approximately true color rendering of the slope of "Endurance Crater," which the Opportunity rover explored in 2004.

A portion of an exposure of bedrock dubbed "Larry's Outcrop" shows little layering in this view, in contrast to nearby outcrops called "Methuselah" and "Jibsheet."

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity used its panoramic camera to record this eastward horizon view on the 2,407th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's work on Mars (Oct. 31, 2010).

A rock with a white edge and a red center reminds us of a jelly donut in a box from the local donut shop in this image taken by Opportunity on February 4, 2014. Named “pinnacle Island” by Opportun...

Dr. Wayne Lee, chief engineer for development of the Mars Exploration Rover's descent and landing systems proudly waves a broom, indicating a clean martian sweep.

Opportunity used its navigation camera for this northward view of tracks the rover left on a drive from one energy-favorable position on a sand ripple to another.

The boulder-studded ridge in this scene recorded by NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity is "McClure-Beverlin Escarpment," informally named for Jack Beverlin and Bill McClure, engineers who on...

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity captured a view of wispy afternoon clouds, not unlike fair weather clouds on Earth, passing overhead on the rover's 956th sol, or Martian day (Oct. 2, 2006).

Late on Feb. 12, 2019, mission controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, sent the last commands to ask NASA’s Opportunity rover on Mars to call home. 

As NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity creeps farther into "Endurance Crater," the dune field on the crater floor appears even more dramatic