Essay Winner's Signature on NASA's Curiosity Rover

The Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover captured this mosaic as it explored the clay-bearing unit on February 3, 2019 (Sol 2309). This landscape includes the rocky landmark nicknam...

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover used its Navigation Camera (Navcam) for this look back after finishing a long drive on Feb. 19, 2014. The rows of rocks just to the right of the fresh wheel tracks in th...

Five years of Martian discoveries after seven minutes of terror.

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover used its Mast Camera, or Mastcam, to capture this panorama while driving toward the center of this scene, an area that forms the narrow “Paraitepuy Pass” on Aug. 14, the...

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.

After a rocket-powered descent stage, also known as the sky crane, delivered NASA's Curiosity rover to Mars on Aug. 5 PDT (Aug. 6 EDT), 2012, it flew away and fell to the surface.

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).

This global map of Mars was acquired on July 31, 2012, by the Mars Color Imager instrument on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

This figure shows the location of CHIMRA on the turret of NASA's Curiosity rover, together with a cutaway view of the device.

This series of images shows the shadow of Phobos as it sweeps over NASA's Curiosity Mars rover and darkens the sunlight on Monday, March 25, 2019 (Sol 2358).

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover, known as Curiosity, arrives at the Shuttle Landing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard an Air Force C-17 cargo plane.

Curiosity gets new software and new capabilities for the long trek to Mt. Sharp.

This self-portrait of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows the vehicle at the "Mojave" site, where its drill collected the mission's second taste of Mount Sharp. The scene combines dozens of images ta...

Engineers put the rover through spin tests to ensure smooth sailing in space.

These images and overlay bar charts from the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover indicate where some high-potassium material is localized within mineral veins a...

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.

The Entry, Descent and Landing team celebrate after the successful landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars.

This movie shows the Martian moon Phobos as viewed in visible light by NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter on April 24, 2019. The apparent motion is due to movement by Odyssey's infrared camera, Therm...

Scientists listen intently for status updates prior to Curiosity's landing.

The two bodies in this portion of an evening-sky view by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity are Earth and Earth's moon. The rover's Mast Camera (Mastcam) imaged them in the twilight sky of Curiosity's 529...

Self-portrait of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover uses thumbnail versions of MAHLI component images to give an idea of what a sharper version will look like when the full-frame images are assembled.

This image shows the wall of a scuffmark NASA's Curiosity made in a windblown ripple of Martian sand with its wheel.

At the bottom of this valley, called Gediz Vallis, is a mound of boulders and debris that are believed to have been swept there by wet landslides billions of years ago. The rover team hopes to get ...

This view from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows a site with a network of prominent mineral veins below a cap rock ridge on lower Mount Sharp.

This graph shows the percentage abundance of five gases in the atmosphere of Mars, as measured by the Quadrupole Mass Spectrometer instrument of the Sample Analysis at Mars instrument suite on NASA...