Driving Over Sandy Ripples

An eruption from the surface of the sun is conspicuous in the lower left portion of this July 6, 2015, image from NASA's Earth-orbiting Solar Dynamics Observatory. It originates from a location on ...

As part of a multi-mission campaign, NASA's Curiosity rover is observing Martian moon transits, the first of which involved the moon Phobos grazing the sun's disk.

Two images from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity rover depicting the change in the color of light illuminating the Martian surface since a dust storm engulfed Gale Crater. The left ima...

Cross-bedding seen in the layers of this Martian rock is evidence of movement of water recorded by waves or ripples of loose sediment the water passed over.

This closeup view from NASA's Curiosity rover shows finely layered rocks, deposited by wind long ago as migrating sand dunes.

This stereo view from NASA's Mars rover Curiosity shows a rock called "Link," which bears rounded pebbles that provide evidence about vigorous flow of water in a stream on ancient Mars.

NASA's Curiosity finds crystals, Opportunity celebrates her 5,000th day on Mars and the MarCO smallsats get solar arrays.

With the wheels and suspension system already installed onto one side of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity the previous day, spacecraft engineers and technicians prepare the other side's mobility subsyst...

This is an artist's concept showing a meteor shower in the skies above the Curiosity rover.

This movie clip shows Phobos, the larger of the two moons of Mars, passing overhead, as observed by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity in a series of images centered straight overhead starting shortly aft...

In this Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter view of the Curiosity rover mission's waypoint called "the Kimberley," the red dot indicates the location of a sandstone target, "Windjana," selected for close-u...

Since landing on Mars in August 2012, NASA's Curiosity rover has been exploring 3-mile-high Mt. Sharp in Gale Crater.

This video shows the mast of NASA's Curiosity rover deploying in a pre-launch test. (Audio: background and mechanical sounds only)Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

This map shows the route driven by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover (blue line) and locations where the rover's ChemCam instrument detected the element boron (dots, colored by abundance of boron accordi...

​NASA's Curiosity rover has discovered ancient organic molecules on Mars, embedded within sedimentary rocks that are billions of years old.

This full-circle view combined nearly 900 images taken by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover, generating a panorama with 1.3 billion pixels in the full-resolution version.

NASA's Curiosity rover found evidence for an ancient, flowing stream on Mars at a few sites, including the rock outcrop pictured here, which the science team has named "Hottah" after Hottah Lake in...

In an activity called the "mini drill test," NASA's Mars rover Curiosity used its drill to generate this ring of powdered rock for inspection in advance of the rover's first full drilling.

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover team wraps up its scientific study at Rocknest.

NASA's Curiosity rover and its parachute were spotted by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter as Curiosity descended to the surface on Aug. 5 PDT (Aug. 6 EDT).

The heat shield for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory is the largest ever built for a planetary mission.

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.

Curiosity revealed a lot about Mars in her first year exploring Gale Crater. Learn more about some of her remarkable discoveries in this video from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

This 360-degree, full-resolution panorama from NASA's Curiosity rover shows the area all around the rover within Gale Crater on Mars.

This image from Curiosity's Mastcam shows inclined beds of sandstone interpreted as the deposits of small deltas fed by rivers flowing down from the Gale Crater rim and building out into a lake whe...