Replicating Martian Dunes

The Laser-Induced Remote Sensing for Chemistry and Micro-Imaging instrument will identify atomic elements in martian rocks. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/J.-L. Lacour, CEA

This scene combines images taken by the left-eye camera of the Mast Camera (Mastcam) instrument on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover during the midafternoon, local Mars solar time, of the mission's 526th...

This self-portrait of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows the vehicle on Vera Rubin Ridge, which it's been investigating for the past several months.

This view shows grains of sand where NASA's Curiosity Mars rover was driven into a shallow sand sheet near a large dune. The scene covers an area 1.3 inches wide, imaged by Curiosity's Mars Hand Le...

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft has been fully stacked for flight in this photograph from inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA Kennedy Space Center, Fla., in October 2011.

Make your own pair of 3-D glasses fashioned after NASA's Mars rover Curiosity! Customize your glasses with crayons and other decorations, then show us your work.

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover used its Navigation Camera (Navcam) to record this stereo scene of a butte called "Mount Remarkable" and surrounding outcrops at a waypoint called "the Kimberley" inside...

The low ridge that appears as a dark band below the horizon in the center of this scene is a Martian outcrop called "Cooperstown," a possible site for contact inspection with tools on the robotic a...

The Mast Camera, or Mastcam, on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover used its telephoto lens to capture Mount Sharp in the morning illumination on Oct. 13, 2019, the 2,555th Martian day, or sol, of the miss...

This image from the Navigation Camera on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows wheel tracks printed by the rover as it drove on the sandy floor of a lowland called "Hidden Valley" on the route toward M...

The foreground of this scene from the Mastcam on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows purple-hued rocks near the rover's late-2016 location. The middle distance includes future destinations for the ro...

The NASA Mars rover Curiosity used its left Navigation Camera to record this view of the step down into a shallow depression called "Yellowknife Bay."

Pictured here are a few of the women working on Mars with the Curiosity test rover model in the background. The image was taken in the "Mars Yard" where the ground test model of the Curiosity rover...

The Mast Camera, or Mastcam, on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover captured this set of images before and after it drilled a rock nicknamed "Aberlady." The rock and others nearby appear to have moved when...

A day after NASA's Mars rover Curiosity drilled the first sample-collection hole into a rock on Mars, the rover's Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument shot laser pulses into the fresh rock pow...

This stereo view from NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover shows the downwind side of a dune about 13 feet high within the Bagnold Dunes on Mars. The image appears three-dimensional when viewed through red-...

Download a PDF of the Mars Science Laboratory Landing Press Kit.

This graph shows the percentage abundance of five gases in the atmosphere of Mars, as measured by the Quadrupole Mass Spectrometer instrument of the Sample Analysis at Mars instrument suite on NASA...

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity appears as a bluish dot near the lower right corner of this enhanced-color view from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on...

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover used the camera on its arm on July 12, 2014, to catch the first images of sparks produced by the rover's laser being shot at a rock on Mars. The left image is from befo...

This graphic shows the pattern of winds predicted to be swirling around and inside Gale Crater, which is where NASA's Curiosity rover landed on Mars.

This mosaic, taken with the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, shows the planned route (in yellow) of NASA's Curiosity rover from "Pah...

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover and its tracks are visible in this view combining information from three observations by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Re...

NASA's Curiosity rover delivers its first soil sample to its chemistry and mineralogy instrument.

This view from the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on the arm of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover is a close-up of a two-tone mineral vein at a site called "Garden City" on lower Mount Sharp.