Replicating Martian Dunes

This diagram and the one at PIA16916 illustrate how the Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) instrument on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover detects hydrogen in the ground beneath the rover.

This April 4, 2014, image from Curiosity's Mastcam looks to the west of a waypoint on the rover's route to Mount Sharp. The mountain lies to the left of the scene. The image shows sets of sandstone...

This computer-generated view depicts part of Mars at the boundary between darkness and daylight, with an area including Gale Crater beginning to catch morning light.

This color full-resolution image showing the heat shield of NASA's Curiosity rover was obtained during descent to the surface of Mars on Aug. 5 PDT (Aug. 6 EDT).

At the Vertical Integration Facility at Space Launch Complex 41 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, technicians use a lifting device to elevate a solid rocket motor (SRM) into an uprigh...

Curiosity shakes up a scoopful of dirt, dusts off the sampling system and investigates a shiny object on the surface of Mars.

This mosaic shows various scenes captured from a location called "Housedon Hill" by the ChemCam instrument aboard NASA's Curiosity Mars rover between September 9 and October 23, 2020 (Sols 2878 and...

Artist's concept of Mars Opposition on December 24, 2007. The distances between the sun, the planets, and the distant nebula are not to scale.

Clouds drift across the sky above a Martian horizon in this accelerated sequence of enhanced images taken on July 17, 2017, by the Navcam on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover.

This low-angle self-portrait of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover from Aug. 5, 2015, shows the vehicle above the "Buckskin" rock target in the "Marias Pass" area of lower Mount Sharp. The MAHLI camera on...

This global map of Mars was acquired on Oct. 28, 2008, by the Mars Color Imager instrument on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. It was acquired during the same season that NASA's Curiosity rover ...

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity drilled into this rock target, "Cumberland," during the 279th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's work on Mars (May 19, 2013) and collected a powdered sample of material...

This picture of the Martian landing site of NASA's Curiosity rover puts a color view obtained by the rover in the context of a computer simulation derived from images acquired from orbiting spacecr...

Prominent mineral veins at the "Garden City" site examined by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover vary in thickness and brightness, as seen in this image from Curiosity's Mast Camera (Mastcam). The image c...

This map shows the route driven by NASA's Curiosity Mars in its approach to and April 1, 2014, arrival at a waypoint called "the Kimberley," which rover team scientists chose in 2013 as the locatio...

Curiosity is a big part of what it means to be human. It's also the name of NASA's next Mars rover. This 60-second video from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory shows how one type of curiosity can in...

A wheel track left by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover exposes underlying material in a shallow sand sheet in this Dec. 2, 2015, view from Curiosity's Mast Camera (Mastcam). The site is close to a large...

The Mars Science Laboratory mission team prepares for entry, descent and landing at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Space Flight Operations Facility in Pasadena, Calif., as Curiosity is hours from l...

The left side of this 360-degree panorama from NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows the long rows of ripples on a linear shaped dune in the Bagnold Dune Field on the northwestern flank of Mount Sharp....

This image shows the location of the 150-micrometer sieve screen on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, a device used to remove larger particles from samples before delivery to science instruments.

The area where NASA's Curiosity rover will land on Aug. 5 PDT (Aug. 6 EDT) has a geological diversity that scientists are eager to investigate, as seen in this false-color map based on data from NA...

This stereo view from NASA's Mars rover Curiosity shows a rock called "Link," which bears rounded pebbles that provide evidence about vigorous flow of water in a stream on ancient Mars.

This picture features some of the women working on the Curiosity rover, taken in the "Mars Yard," a simulated martian landscape right here at JPL.

This image shows the first holes drilled by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity at Mount Sharp.

A test operator in clean-room garb holds umbilical cables for NASA's Mars rover Curiosity during the rover's first drive test, on July 23, 2010.