Mawrth Vallis

Engineers work on Opportunity (in its cruise configuration) in a cleanroom at Kennedy Space Center. A very important part of planetary protection is keeping contaminants from humans from riding abo...

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover used its Mast Camera, or Mastcam, to capture this panorama while driving toward the center of this scene, an area that forms the narrow “Paraitepuy Pass” on Aug. 14, the...

In this image from NASA's Curiosity rover, a rock outcrop called Link pops out from a Martian surface that is elsewhere blanketed by reddish-brown dust. The fractured Link outcrop has blocks of exp...

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.

Emily Eelkema Stough, Tactical Uplink Lead and Jessica Samuels, Engineering Operations Team Chief, pose for the cameras in the "Mars Yard" with Curiosity's ground test model in the background.

Here is a rover's eye view of driving, scooping and drilling during Curiosity's first year on Mars, August 2012 through July 2013. (No audio)

This GIF shows clouds drifting over Mount Sharp on Mars, as viewed by NASA’s Curiosity rover on March 19, 2021, the 3,063rd Martian day, or sol, of the mission. Each frame of the scene was stitched...

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

The Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover captured this mosaic as it explored the clay-bearing unit on February 3, 2019 (Sol 2309). This landscape includes the rocky landmark nicknam...

Curiosity's dramatic landing on Mars is the most difficult and nail-biting part of the whole mission. This 60-second video from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory shows what it takes to touch down su...

A close-up view of a microchip with 1.2 million names that will be placed aboard NASA's Mars Curiosity Rover. Engineers etched the names onto a silicon wafer or microchip. They used an electron be...

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover measures the concentration of methane in the atmosphere at Gale Crater. A one-time spike in methane, up to about 7 parts per billion occurred during Curiosity's first Ma...

About the size of a small toaster, the Radiation Assessment Detector will look skyward and use a stack of silicon detectors and a crystal of cesium iodide to measure galactic cosmic rays and solar ...

This graph shows about one-fourth of a Martian year's pattern atmospheric pressure at the surface of Mars, as measured by the Rover Environmental Monitoring Station on NASA's Curiosity rover.

This mosaic from the Mast Camera on NASA's Curiosity rover shows a close-up view looking toward the "Glenelg" area, where three different terrain types come together.

This view from NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover shows the downwind side of a dune about 13 feet high within the Bagnold Dunes field on Mars. The rover's Navigation Camera took the component images on De...

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

This sequence of images from the Front Hazard-Avoidance Camera on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity shows the rover drilling into rock target "Cumberland." The drilling was performed during the 279th Ma...

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity used its Mast Camera (Mastcam) to take the images combined into this mosaic of the drill area, called "John Klein."

This map shows the route driven by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity through the 597 Martian day, or sol, of the rover's mission on Mars (April 11, 2014).

This view from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows a swath of bedrock called "Alexander Hills," which the rover approached for close-up inspection of selected targets. It...

This map traces where NASA's Mars rover Curiosity drove between landing at a site subsequently named "Bradbury Landing," and the position reached during the mission's 130th Martian day, or sol, (De...

This image of a U.S. penny on a calibration target was taken by the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) aboard NASA's Curiosity rover in Gale Crater on Mars. At 14 micrometers per pixel, this is the high...

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover recorded this view of various rock types at waypoint called "the Kimberley" shortly after arriving at the location on April 2, 2014. The site offers a diversity of rock ...

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