Meridiani Planum

A vast dune field lies near the northern polar cap of Mars. Seen here in summer, the dunes have partially buried an impact crater about 1,000 meters (3,300 feet) wide.

A small impact crater on Mars named Gratteri, 4.3 miles (6.9 km) wide, lies at the center of large dark streaks.

Fans and ribbons of dark sand dunes creep across the floor of Bunge Crater in response to winds blowing from the direction at the top of the picture. The frame is about 14 kilometers (9 miles) wide.

Color coding in this map of a far-northern site on Mars indicates the change in nighttime ground-surface temperature between summer and fall. This site, like most of high-latitude Mars, has water i...

A sea of dark dunes, sculpted by the wind into long lines, surrounds the northern polar cap covering an area as big as Texas.

A lunar eclipse, a solar eclipse and Mars has a close encounter with a comet.

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

A group of small, unnamed craters in the martian southern hemisphere is the first site captured by a group of middle school students who are operating the camera system onboard NASA's Mars Odyssey ...

This image from NASAs Mars Odyssey shows lava flows from Alba Mons, and a tectonic graben called Cyane Fossae.

A "Grand Canyon of Mars" slices across the Red Planet near its equator.

Sixteen seventh-graders at Evergreen Middle School in Cottonwood, Calif., found the Martian pit feature at the center of the superimposed red square in this image while participating in a program t...

Interact with this 3D model of Mars Odyssey.

Martian surface frost, made up largely of carbon dioxide, appears blueish-white in these images from the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) camera aboard NASA’s 2001 Odyssey orbiter. THEMIS t...

How can you communicate with Mars spacecraft when the Sun is in the way? Learn more about 'solar conjunction' in this 60-second video.

In Ares Vallis, teardrop mesas extend like pennants behind impact craters, where the raised rocky rims diverted the floods and protected the ground from erosion.

Wind shadow and real shadow combine to give a striking image of a comet.

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

Mars Odyssey Project Manager Gaylon McSmith, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Mars program Chief Engineer Robert Shotwell describes Mars Odyssey's unprecedented view of comet Siding Spring as the comet sweeps by the Red Planet on Oct. 19 and how it will maneuver to take images.

Gale Crater, home to NASA's Curiosity Mars rover, shows a new face in this image made using data from the THEMIS camera on NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter.

Snow falls and ice and frost form on Mars, too. NASA's spacecraft on and orbiting the Red Planet reveal the similarities to and differences from how we experience winter on Earth.  

The channels in this VIS image are part of Tyrrhena Fossae on the northern flank of Tyrrhenus Mons.

Phobos and Deimos, the moons of Mars, are seen in this image from NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter. The distance to Deimos from Odyssey during the observation was about 12,222 miles (19,670 kilomet...

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.

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