Desolate Landscape

Amanda Steffy and Rob Sullivan help shape a course of sand ripples for the Scarecrow rover to drive over. This test was done in the Dumont Dunes in California's Mojave Desert, near Death Valley.

Backdropped by the Atlantic Ocean, the 197-foot-tall United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket rolls toward the launch pad at Space Launch Complex 41 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Ato...

The Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument, largest of the 10 science instruments for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission, will examine samples of Martian rocks, soil and atmosphere for inform...

This wide view of the 'John Klein' location selected for the first rock drilling by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity is a mosaic taken by Curiosity's right Mast Camera (Mastcam) during the afternoon of ...

This image from NASA's Curiosity rover shows the first sample of powdered rock extracted by the rover's drill.

This is the first image taken by NASA's Curiosity rover, which landed on Mars the evening of Aug. 5 PDT (morning of Aug. 6 EDT).

These two views from NASA’s Curiosity rover, acquired specifically to measure the amount of dust inside Gale Crater, show that dust has increased over three days from a major Martian dust storm.

Access Mars allows any member of the public to explore the discoveries of NASA's Curiosity rover.

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 map shows where NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has driven since landing at a site subsequently named "Bradbury Landing," and traveling to an overlook position near beside "Point Lake," in drives ...

Tom Rivellini of the entry, descent and landing team gives a big thumbs up upon Curiosity's successful landing on Mars.

This 360-degree panorama from NASA's Mars rover Curiosity shows the rocky terrain surrounding it as of its 55th Martian day, or sol, of the mission (Oct. 1, 2012).

The red "X" marks the spot where NASA's Curiosity rover landed on Mars.

This pair of images from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity rover illustrates how special filters are used to scout terrain ahead for variations in the local bedrock.

As of June 2012, the target landing area for Curiosity, the rover of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission, is the ellipse marked on this image, about 12 miles long and 4 miles wide (20 kilometers...

This pair of graphs shows about one-fourth of a Martian year's record of temperatures (in degrees Celsius) measured by the Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS) on NASA's Curiosity rover.

Send Your Name to Mars microchip location, taken prior to the launch of NASA's Mars Curiosity Rover. More than 1.2 million names were submitted on our web site over a one year period! Some 20,000 ...

Video of the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida on Nov. 26, 2011, onboard an Atlas V rocket.

Gale Crater

Testing of the cruise stage for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory in August 2010 included a session in a facility that simulates the environment found in interplanetary space.

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover used the camera on its arm on July 12, 2014, to catch the first images of sparks produced by the rover's laser being shot at a rock on Mars. The left image is from befo...

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity used a mechanism on its robotic arm to dig up five scoopfuls of material from a patch of dusty sand called "Rocknest," producing the five bite-mark pits visible in this ...

This image from the Navigation Camera on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows a sandstone slab on which the rover team has selected a target, "Windjana," for close-up examination.

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

Miguel San Martin, Chief Engineer for Guidance, Navigation and Control for the Curiosity rover, pauses to hold back tears as he leads the Entry, Descent and Landing team into the post-landing news ...