Replicating Martian Dunes

This focus-merge image from the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on the arm of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity shows a rock called "Burwash." The rock has a coating of dust on it. The coarser, visible gra...

NASA's next Mars rover, Curiosity, drives up a ramp during a test at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., on Sept. 10, 2010.

At the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover, known as Curiosity, will be integrated with a rocket-powered desce...

The left-front wheel of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows dents and holes in this image taken during the 469th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's work on Mars (Nov. 30, 2013).

This self-portrait of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows the vehicle at the "Mojave" site, where its drill collected the mission's second taste of Mount Sharp. The scene combines dozens of images ta...

This mosaic taken by NASA's Mars Curiosity rover looks uphill at Mount Sharp, which Curiosity has been climbing. 

Mars Science Laboratory mission scientists, flight controllers, managers and administrators raise their hands to a cheering crowd at a news conference following the successful landing of NASA’s Cur...

As of June 2012, the target landing area for Curiosity, the rover of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission, is the ellipse marked on this image, about 12 miles long and 4 miles wide (20 kilometers...

This set of graphs shows variation in the amount and the depth of water detected beneath NASA's Mars rover Curiosity by use of the rover's Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) instrument at different p...

Two spacecraft engineers join a grouping of vehicles providing a comparison of three generations of Mars rovers developed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. The setting is JPL's ...

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took this photo of the Curiosity rover in September 2015, as Curiosity was exploring the boundary between two rock units: the light-toned Murray Formation and the ov...

This image provides a way to have a full-size printout of the calibration target for the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity.

This is a close-up view of a zone where the soil at Curiosity's landing site was blown away by the thrusters on the rover's descent stage.

These six images from NASA's Mars rover Curiosity show the two moons of Mars moments before (left three) and after (right three) the larger moon, Phobos, occulted Deimos on Aug. 1, 2013.

This image from NASA's Curiosity rover shows the open inlet where powdered rock and soil samples will be funneled down for analysis.

Data from the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) instrument on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity show an unusual enrichment of silicon in the rocks dubbed "Wildrose" and "Bonanza King,"

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover used its Navigation Camera (Navcam) on April 11, 2014, to record this scene of a butte called "Mount Remarkable" and surrounding outcrops at a waypoint called "the Kimbe...

This image of a Martian rock illuminated by white-light LEDs (light emitting diodes) is part of the first set of nighttime images taken by the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera at the end of the...

Scientists listen intently for status updates prior to Curiosity's landing.

This chart graphs measurements made by the Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) instrument on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity against the distance the rover has driven, in meters.

A landscape scene from NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows rock rows at "Junda" forming striations in the foreground, with Mount Sharp on the horizon. The component images were taken by the rover's N...

This mosaic shows the calibration target for the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument on NASA's Curiosity rover, as seen by the ChemCam's remote micro-imager. The images were taken on Aug. 15,...

Under the watchful eyes of technicians at the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, an overhead crane lowers a rocket-powered descent stage over NASA's Mar...

The Mars Descent Imager will provide color video footage of the landing site and the surrounding terrain during the Mars Science Laboratory's descent to the surface of the red planet. Image credit:...

The Curiosity rover’s Entry, Descent and Landing team (EDL) arrives at the post-landing press conference to cheers and celebration.