Southern Meridiani

This video steps viewers through a portion of the choreography needed to land NASA's Curiosity rover on Mars. It starts with a computer simulation from NASA's Eyes on the Solar System program and ...

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

This look back at a dune that NASA's Curiosity Mars rover drove across was taken by the rover's Mast Camera (Mastcam) during the 538th Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity's work on Mars (Feb. 9, 2014).

The reclosable dust cover on Curiosity's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) was opened for the first time during the 33rd Martian day, or sol, of the rover's mission on Mars (Sept. 8, 2012), enabling MA...

This self-portrait of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity combines 66 exposures taken by the rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) during the 177th Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity's work on Mars (Feb. 3...

This global image shows seven possible landing sites for MSL.

Gray cuttings from Curiosity's drilling into a target called "Mojave 2" are visible surrounding the sample-collection hole in this Jan. 31, 2015, image from the rover's MAHLI camera. This site in t...

The Mastcam on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover captured this view of "Vera Rubin Ridge" about two weeks before the rover starting to ascend this steep ridge on lower Mount Sharp.

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover team wraps up its scientific study at Rocknest.

This set of images shows the similarity of sulfate-rich veins seen on Mars by NASA's Curiosity rover to sulfate-rich veins seen on Earth.

This photograph of the NASA Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity, was taken during mobility testing on June 3, 2011. The location is inside the Spacecraft Assembly Facility at NASA's Jet Propul...

The Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument, largest of the 10 science instruments for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission, will examine samples of Martian rocks, soil and atmosphere for inform...

A NASA Dryden Flight Research Center F/A-18 852 aircraft performs a roll during a dive toward Rogers Dry Lake at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., during June 2011 flight tests of a Mars landing radar.

These schematic drawings show a top view and a cutaway view of a section of the drill on NASA's Curiosity rover on Mars.

This March 25, 2014, view from the Mastcam on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover looks southward at the Kimberley waypoint. In the foreground, multiple sandstone beds show systematic inclination to the so...

Peter C. Theisinger served as the first project manager of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory project at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

On this image of the rock target "Knorr," color coding maps the amount of mineral hydration indicated by a ratio of near-infrared reflectance intensities measured by the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NA...

The graph at right presents information from the NASA Curiosity Mars rover's onboard analysis of rock powder drilled from the "Buckskin" target location, shown at left.

How a Martian mountain came to be: the story behind Curiosity's current location on Mars.

A chapter of the layered geological history of Mars is laid bare in this postcard from NASA's Curiosity rover. The image shows the base of Mount Sharp, the rover's eventual science destination.

This panorama is a mosaic of images taken by the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on the NASA Mars rover Curiosity while the rover was working at a site called "Rocknest" in October and November 2012.

A crane positions the 106.5-foot-long first stage of the Atlas V rocket for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission inside the Vertical Integration Facility at Space Launch Complex 41 on Cape ...

This animation shows the major mission events of the Curiosity rover's landing on Mars. (Audio: music and mechanical sounds only)

Processes in Mars' surface material can explain why particular xenon (Xe) and krypton (Kr) isotopes are more abundant in the Martian atmosphere than expected, as measured by NASA's Curiosity rover....

An in-flight camera check on NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft turned on illumination sources that are part of the Curiosity rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) instrument.