Desolate Landscape

A wheel track left by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover exposes underlying material in a shallow sand sheet in this Dec. 2, 2015, view from Curiosity's Mast Camera (Mastcam). The site is close to a large...

By monitoring weather through two Martian years since landing in Gale Crater, NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has documented seasonal patterns in variables such as temperature, water-vapor content and ...

As of June 2012, the target landing area for Curiosity, the rover inside NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft, is the ellipse marked in black on this image.

In the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, spacecraft technicians secure an Atlas V rocket payload fairing around NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL).

In this image, about a dozen people watch the large Scarecrow rover drive over a grayish orange boulder in an outdoor sandbox. Scarecrow is about the size of a small compact car. Its 'legs,' (mobil...

From a position in the shallow "Yellowknife Bay" depression, NASA's Mars rover Curiosity used its right Mast Camera (Mastcam) to take the telephoto images combined into this panorama of geological ...

This pair of images shows a "bite mark" where NASA's Curiosity rover scooped up some Martian soil (left), and the scoop carrying soil.

Stitched together from 28 images, NASA's Curiosity Mars rover captured this view from "Greenheugh Pediment" on April 9, 2020, the 2,729th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. In the foreground is t...

This engineering drawing shows the arm on NASA's Curiosity's rover in its "ready- for-action" position, or "ready out" as engineers say, in addition to the position it assumes to drop off samples.

This image from NASA's Curiosity rover shows the great diversity of grains found on the surface of a Martian rock.

Mission team members share their excitement and reflections on the launch of the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover.

Two of the raised treads, called grousers, on the left middle wheel of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover broke during the first quarter of 2017, including the one seen partially detached at the top of th...

This detailed panorama from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows a view toward two areas on lower Mount Sharp chosen for close-up inspection: "Mount Shields" and "Logan Pa...

This view shows the patch of veined, flat-lying rock selected as the first drilling site for NASA's Mars rover Curiosity.

This image demonstrates how engineers place the drill carried by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity onto rock targets.

This image from the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity shows a small bright object on the ground beside the rover at the "Rocknest" site.

The relationship between charged-particle radiation dose measured with silicon sensors and the dose that biological tissue would receive in the same setting is assessed as a function of how much en...

This is the right-eye member of a stereo pair of images of the Mars Science Laboratory mission's rover, Curiosity.

Curiosity will spend the holidays at a location on Mars dubbed "Grandma's House."

This video shows an engineering test for NASA's Curiosity rover, which took place during Assembly, Test and Launch Operations (ATLO), a project phase that occurs when all components are integrated,...

This view of a Martian rock target called "Harrison" merges images from two cameras on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover to provide both color and microscopic detail.

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.

A crane positions the 106.5-foot-long first stage of the Atlas V rocket for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission inside the Vertical Integration Facility at Space Launch Complex 41 on Cape ...

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

This animation shows the location of a set of Hazard-Avoidance cameras on the back of NASA's Curiosity rover. Each camera is protected by a clear dust cover, shown here popping off. (No audio)