Artist's concept of future humans on Mars.

No NASA Mars orbiter has been in a position to observe morning daylight on Mars since the twin Viking orbiters of the 1970s.

Marte Vallis, located in Amazonis Planitia, is broad and shallow. The streamlined islands at the top and bottom of the image illustrate this.

A small basin (center foreground) lies below the southern rim of Melas Chasma, part of Valles Marineris.

Bright blue marks a deposit of chloride (salt) minerals in the southern highlands of Mars in this false-color image, which highlights mineral composition differences.

NASA’s 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter is depicted in this illustration.

Sand-laden jets shoot into the polar sky in this view by noted space artist Ron Miller.

NASA Science missions circle Earth, the Sun, the Moon, Mars and many other destinations within our solar system, including spacecraft that look out even further into our universe. The Science Fleet...

NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft passes above a portion of the planet that is rotating into the sunlight in this artist's concept illustration. The spacecraft has been orbiting Mars since October ...

Bacolor Crater is a magnificent impact feature about 20 kilometers (12 miles) wide.

Colors in this image of the Martian moon Phobos indicate a range of surface temperatures detected by observing the moon on Sept. 29, 2017, with the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) camera o...

Five decades of successful NASA missions to the Red Planet, 1965-2015.

This crater, located in Chryse Planitia, is relatively unmodified, meaning it appears very much like it did when it first formed.

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

A large dust storm on Mars, nearly twice the size of the United States, covered the southern hemisphere of the Red Planet in early January 2022, leading to some of NASA’s explorers on the surface h...

Taken on April 24, 2019, this rainbow-colored image shows the Martian moon Phobos, as viewed by NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter using its infrared camera, THEMIS. Each color represents a different...

The dunes in this VIS image are located in Aonia Terra.

This unnamed channel drains part of Margaritifer Terra.

These are two views of the same observation of the Martian moon Phobos taken in both infrared and visible light by NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter using its THEMIS camera. The image was taken on A...

At 11:02 a.m. EDT on April 7, 2001, crowds watch a Boeing Delta II rocket lift off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, carrying NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft into space on its sev...

Large fractures have formed 'steps' in this region of Tempe Terra.

When the Mars Exploration Rover, Opportunity, landed on Meridiani Planum in January 2004, it quickly found what it had been sent from Earth to find: evidence of liquid water in the Martian past.

Continuing our survey of non-crater dune fields brings us to this group of dunes in Aonia Terra. The daytime IR illustrates the warmth of the dune material compared to the surrounding materials.

Sand dunes shaped like blue-black flames lie next to a central hill within an unnamed, 120-kilometer-wide (75-mile-wide) crater in eastern Arabia on Mars.

The dunes and dust devil tracks in this VIS image are located on the plains of Planum Chronium.

Getting to Mars is difficult enough -- staying there is even more challenging. Odyssey met up with Mars on October 24 02:26 UTC (October 23: 7:26 p.m. PDT/10:26 p.m.EDT).