Dunes Obstacle Course

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity used its navigation camera to take the exposures combined into this stereo view of a wee crater, informally named "Skylab," along the rover's route. The co...

This small ridge, about 3 feet long, appears to resist wind erosion more than the flatter plates around it. Such differences are among the traits NASA's Curiosity Mars rover is examining at selecte...

This 360-degree image shows a complete, full-resolution panorama around NASA's Curiosity rover, taken by the Navigation cameras.

NASA began a historic voyage to Mars with the Nov. 26, 2011, launch of the Mars Science Laboratory, which carries a car-sized rover named Curiosity. Liftoff from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station ab...

At the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the "back shell powered descent vehicle" configuration, containing NASA's Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curio...

This is a still from an interactive web feature that guides you through the entry, descent and landing of NASA's Curiosity rover.

This image shows a close-up of the rock named "Crest," taken by the remote micro-imager (RMI) on Curiosity's Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument above the analysis of the elements detected by...

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...

These images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) show a before-and-after comparison of the area where NASA's Curiosity rover landed on Aug. 5 PDT (Aug. 6 EDT).

This map shows the route driven by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity through the 29th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's mission on Mars (Sept. 4, 2012).

Have you ever wondered how hard it is to land at a specific spot on Mars? Find out in this activity by building a device that can zip down a line and drop a "lander" onto a target.

With students and NASA space shuttle astronaut Leland Melvin looking on, musical artist will.i.am posts a tweet soon after his song "Reach for the Stars" was beamed back from the Curiosity Mars rov...

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 view from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows a network of two-tone mineral veins at an area called "Garden City" on lower Mount Sharp.

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.

A group of teachers discusses solutions to a problem-solving activity at the Aug. 5, 2012, Curiosity Educator Workshop at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

A rippled linear dune of dark Martian sand, "Nathan Bridges Dune," dominates this full-circle panorama from the Mastcam of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover. This dune was one research stop of the missio...

The lower portion of a mountain inside Gale crater on Mars contains layers that may be examined by NASA's Mars Science Laboratory.

This animation shows the approximate true position of NASA's Curiosity rover on Mars. A 3-D virtual model of Curiosity is shown inside Gale Crater, near Mount Sharp, Curiosity's ultimate destinatio...

Goal 4: Prepare for human exploration

This full-resolution image from NASA's Curiosity shows the turret of tools at the end of the rover's extended robotic arm on Aug. 20, 2012. The Navigation Camera captured this view.

This view of a Martian rock slab called "Old Soaker," which has a network of cracks that may have originated in drying mud, comes from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover. It w...

An engineer dressed in white cleanroom coveralls (called a "bunny suit") works on the rover upside-down in its "backshell."

Filled with briny lakes, the Quisquiro salt flat in South America's Altiplano represents the kind of landscape that scientists think may have existed in Gale Crater, which NASA's Curiosity rover is...

Clay minerals are composed of layers. Water and cations (positive-charged ions) can be stored between these layers.