Scarecrow Rover Desert Tests

This picture shows the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer used on the Mars Exploration Rovers. The improved APXS instrument on the Mars Science Laboratory rover would be able to detect elemental com...

This map shows the route driven by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity through the 56th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's mission on Mars (Oct. 2, 2012).

This September 2016 self-portrait of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows the vehicle at the "Quela" drilling location in the scenic "Murray Buttes" area on lower Mount Sharp. The panorama was stitche...

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover used a new drill method to produce a hole on February 26 in a target named Lake Orcadie. The hole marks the first operation of the rover's drill since a motor problem be...

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 look back at a dune that NASA's Curiosity Mars rover drove across was taken by the rover's Mast Camera (Mastcam) during the 538th Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity's work on Mars (Feb. 9, 2014).

Astronaut Leland Melvin, NASA’s Associate Administrator for Education, has a little fun with teachers while talking about how to eat snacks in space. Melvin served on board the Space Shuttle Atlant...

This color view of the parachute and back shell that helped deliver NASA's Curiosity rover to the surface of the Red Planet was taken by the High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) came...

Aaron Yazzie and others explain how, by scooping dirt and drilling rocks, rovers are digging deeper into the mysteries of Mars.

Concretions at 'Cumberland'

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...

NASA's Curiosity rover and its powered descent vehicle pose for photographs prior to being integrated for launch at JPL's Spacecraft Assembly Facility.

Gray cuttings from Curiosity's drilling into a target called "Mojave 2" are visible surrounding the sample-collection hole in this Jan. 31, 2015, image from the rover's MAHLI camera. This site in t...

No bones about it! Seen by Mars rover Curiosity using its MastCam, this Mars rock may look like a femur thigh bone. Mission science team members think its shape is likely sculpted by erosion, eithe...

Relive the nail-biting terror and joy as NASA's Curiosity rover successfully landed on Mars the evening of Aug. 5 PDT (morning of Aug. 6 EDT).

Download a PDF of Curiosity's Brochure.

In the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the Atlas V rocket's payload fairing containing the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) spacecraft stands securely a...

This graphic portrays two hypotheses about how the element boron ended up in calcium sulfate veins found within mudstone layers of Mars' lower Mount Sharp.

The NASA Mars rover Curiosity used its Navigation Camera (Navcam) during the mission's 120th Martian day, or sol (Dec. 7, 2012), to record the seven images combined into this panoramic view.

This video depicts NASA's Curiosity rover observing Mars' two moons, then shows one moon passing in front of the other. (No audio)

This set of images compares rocks seen by NASA's Opportunity rover and Curiosity rover at two different parts of Mars.

This is a view of the third (left) and fourth (right) trenches made by the 1.6-inch-wide (4-centimeter-wide) scoop on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity in October 2012.

This image from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity shows inclined layering known as cross-bedding in an outcrop called "Shaler" on a scale of a few tenths of meters, or decime...

The right Mast Camera (Mastcam) of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover provided this contextual view of the vicinity of the location called "John Klein," selected as Curiosity's first drilling site.

Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, left, and Erisa Hines of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, speak to members of the news media during a preview of the new "Destination: Mars...