Dunes Obstacle Course

This is a picture of some of the women working on the Curiosity rover posing with Curiosity's mobility double, "Scarecrow," used to test drive under different soil conditions in the JPL "Mars Yard."

This image from NASA's Curiosity rover shows the great diversity of grains found on the surface of a Martian rock.

ASA's Curiosity Mars rover used the Navigation Camera (Navcam) on its mast to catch this look-back eastward at wheel tracks from driving through and past "Dingo Gap" inside Gale Crater.

Two 2001 images from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter show a dramatic change in the planet's appearance during a dust storm.

A screen capture from NASA's new Experience Curiosity website shows the rover in the process of taking its own self-portrait.

This is the first image taken by the Navigation cameras on NASA's Curiosity rover. It shows the shadow of the rover's now-upright mast in the center, and the arm's shadow at left. The arm itself ca...

Mars Parachute Testing in World's Largest Wind Tunnel

NASA's NEOWISE mission detected comet C/2013 A1 Siding Spring on July 28, 2014, less than three months before this comet's close flyby of Mars on Oct. 19. This merging of multiple images presents t...

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

A selfie taken by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover on Sol 2291 (January 15) at the "Rock Hall" drill site, located on Vera Rubin Ridge.

This image shows engineers' refinements of where NASA's Curiosity rover will enter the atmosphere of Mars on Aug. 5 PDT (Aug. 6 EDT).

Sandstone layers with varying resistance to erosion are evident in this Martian scene recorded by the Mast Camera on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover on Feb. 25, 2014, about one-quarter mile (about 400 ...

The Rover Environmental Monitoring Station will monitor atmospheric pressure, humidity, wind currents, and ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/INTA (Instituto Naciona...

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

This video clip shows the first Martian material collected by the scoop on the robotic arm of NASA's Mars Curiosity rover, being vibrated inside the scoop after it was lifted from the ground on Oct...

Scientist Katie Stack Morgan examines rover images on her computer. Images, even 3-D stereo views, lack a natural sense of depth that human vision employs to understand spatial relationships.

This map shows the location of "Cumberland," the second rock-drilling target for NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, in relation to the rover's first drilling target, "John Klein," within the southwestern...

This illustration provides a comparison for how big the moons of Mars appear to be, as seen from the surface of Mars, in relation to the size that Earth's moon appears to be when seen from the surf...

This full-resolution self-portrait shows the deck of NASA's Curiosity rover from the rover's Navigation camera.

Students decide what they want to learn from a robotic mission to Mars and what tools they will put on their robot to accomplish their goals.

Mercury passed in front of the sun on June 3, 2014, as viewed from Mars. The Mast Camera on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover recorded the event. (No audio)

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

This global map of Mars was acquired on July 31, 2012, by the Mars Color Imager instrument on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover took this 360-degree panorama while atop “Mont Mercou,” a rock formation that offered a view into Gale Crater below. 

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover used its Navigation Camera (Navcam) to capture this scene toward the west just after completing a drive that took the mission's total driving distance on Mars past 10 ki...