Mars on Earth

This mosaic image shows part of the left side of NASA's Curiosity rover and two blast marks from the descent stage's rocket engines.

This May 22, 2015, view from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) in NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows the "Marias Pass" area where a lower and older geological unit of mudstone -- the pale zone in the center...

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...

This graphic shows how navigators steering NASA's Mars Science Laboratory capsule - with the Curiosity rover tucked inside - are aiming for a pinpoint location above Mars. They liken it to threadin...

This graphic shows the flux of radiation detected by NASA's Mars Science Laboratory on the trip from Earth to Mars from December 2011 to July 2012.

This scene shows NASA's Curiosity Mars rover at a location called "Windjana," where the rover found rocks containing manganese-oxide minerals, which require abundant water and strongly oxidizing co...

The foreground of this scene from the Mastcam on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows purple-hued rocks near the rover's late-2016 location. The middle distance includes future destinations for the ro...

Holden Crater

A day after NASA's Mars rover Curiosity drilled the first sample-collection hole into a rock on Mars, the rover's Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument shot laser pulses into the fresh rock pow...

Astronaut, Leland Melvin escorts Will.i.am into JPL at the beginning of the Curiosity Landing Night event.

This patch of Martian bedrock, about 2 feet (70 centimeters) across, is finely layered rock with some pea-size inclusions. It lies near the lowest point of the "Pahrump Hills" outcrop, which forms ...

This view shows the path and some key places in a survey of the "Pahrump Hills" outcrop by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover in autumn of 2014.

A shiny-looking Martian rock is visible in this image taken by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity's Mast Camera (Mastcam) during the mission's 173rd Martian day, or sol (Jan. 30, 2013).

Standing atop a payload transporter, the Atlas V rocket payload fairing containing NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) spacecraft rolls out of the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at Kennedy S...

This scene combines images taken by the left-eye camera of the Mast Camera (Mastcam) instrument on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover during the midafternoon, local Mars solar time, of the mission's 526th...

This view from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows two scales of ripples, plus other textures, in an area where the mission examined a linear-shaped dune in the Bagnold d...

This left-eye member of a stereo pair of images from the Navigation Camera (Navcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows a full 360-degree view of the rover's surroundings at the site where it firs...

Mars Science Laboratory team member Jessica Samuels gives a progress report on Curiosity's first days on Mars.

The Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover fired its laser 50 times at its onboard graphite target during the 27th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's work on Mars...

This image shows the underside of a grey F/A-18 jet with dark stripes flying against a blue sky from quite a distance away. Underneath the jet is a pod carrying sensors that measure the jet's tempe...

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

This is an artist's concept of NASA's Curiosity rover tucked inside the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft's backshell while the spacecraft is descending on a parachute toward Mars.

This image of the northwestern portion of Mars' Gale Crater and terrain north of it, from the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter, provides a locator map for some features visible in an Oc...

One priority target for a closer look by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity before the rover departs the "Glenelg" area east of its landing site is the pitted outcrop called "Point Lake," in the upper hal...

NASA's Curiosity finds that the Red Planet doesn't have the same atmosphere it used to.