Southern Meridiani

This artist's conception of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory portrays use of the rover's ChemCam instrument to identify the chemical composition of a rock sample on the surface of Mars.

This Mars Descent Imager (MARDI) camera will fly on the Curiosity rover of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission.

The Lincoln penny in this photograph is part of a camera calibration target attached to NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, which is on track for a landing on Mars the night of Aug. 5 to Aug. 6, 2012.

The two prominent mesas in this Aug. 18, 2016, view of Mars' "Murray Buttes" region from the Curiosity Mars rover's Mastcam are about 260 feet (about 80 meters) apart. The one on the right is about...

The plot on the left shows new results from the Sample Analysis at Mars, or SAM, instrument on NASA's Curiosity rover.

Goal 2: Characterize the climate of Mars

This view of the twilight sky and Martian horizon taken by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover includes Earth as the brightest point of light in the night sky.

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover used two cameras to create this selfie in front of Mont Mercou, a rock outcrop that stands 20 feet (6 meters) tall. The panorama is made up of 60 images from the MAHLI c...

The descent stage of NASA's Mars Sciecnce Laboratory spacecraft is being lifted during assembly of the spacecraft in this photograph taken inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA Ke...

The reclosable dust cover on Curiosity's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) was opened for the first time during the 33rd Martian day, or sol, of the rover's mission on Mars (Sept. 8, 2012), enabling MA...

Preparations are under way to enclose NASA's Mars Science Laboratory in an Atlas V rocket payload fairing in this photograph from inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA's Kennedy S...

This sped-up movie from the Curiosity rover shows Phobos (the larger of Mars' two moons) passing in front of smaller Deimos. (No audio)

Curiosity captured this vista using the left black-and-white navigation camera mounted on its mast, or “head,” on Feb. 1, 2024, the 4,084th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. The panorama is made...

This photograph of the NASA Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity, was taken during mobility testing on June 3, 2011. The location is inside the Spacecraft Assembly Facility at NASA's Jet Propul...

The Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity acquired close-up views of sands in the "Rocknest" wind drift to document the nature of the material that the rover scooped, sieved ...

This map shows where NASA's Mars rover Curiosity landed in August 2012 at "Bradbury Landing"; the area where the rover worked from November 2012 through May 2013 at and near the "John Klein" target...

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover used its Mast Camera, or Mastcam, to survey these wind-sharpened rocks, called ventifacts, on March 15, 2022, the 3,415th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. The team h...

This set of images compares the Link outcrop of rocks on Mars (left) with similar rocks seen on Earth (right).

This 3D, or stereo anaglyph, view shows NASA's Mars rover Curiosity where it landed on Mars within Gale Crater, at a site now called Bradbury Landing. The view was produced from images taken by the...

Five decades of successful NASA missions to the Red Planet, 1965-2015.

This oblique view of the lower mound in Gale crater shows layers of rock that preserve a record of environments on Mars.

This is an artist's concept of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft approaching Mars.

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity held its Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera about 10.5 inches (27 centimeters) away from the top of a rock called "Bathurst Inlet" for a set of eight images combined i...

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover took this selfie at a location nicknamed "Mary Anning" after a 19th century English paleontologist. Curiosity snagged three samples of drilled rock at this site on its w...

The Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover monitors high-energy atomic and subatomic particles coming from the sun, distant supernovae and other sources.