Desolate Landscape

This chart illustrates how NASA's Curiosity rover talks to Earth. While the rover can send direct messages, it communicates more efficiently with the help of spacecraft in orbit, including NASA's O...

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 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...

This is the first image taken by the Navigation cameras on NASA's Curiosity rover. It shows the shadow of the rover's now-upright mast in the center, and the arm's shadow at left. The arm itself ca...

This mosaic shows various scenes captured from a location called "Housedon Hill" by the ChemCam instrument aboard NASA's Curiosity Mars rover between September 9 and October 23, 2020 (Sols 2878 and...

The entry, descent and landing team of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory project received the 2013 Trophy for Current Achievement from the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum on April 24, 2013.

Gale Crater

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...

This September 2016 self-portrait of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows the vehicle at the "Quela" drilling location in the scenic "Murray Buttes" area on lower Mount Sharp. The panorama was stitche...

This image shows the location of the 150-micrometer sieve screen on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, a device used to remove larger particles from samples before delivery to science instruments.

This mosaic of images from Curiosity's Mast Camera (Mastcam) shows geological members of the Yellowknife Bay formation, and the sites where Curiosity drilled into the lowest-lying member, called Sh...

This graphic illustrates how dimensions of clay minerals' crystal structure are affected by which ions are present in the mineral. The CheMin instrument on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover identified di...

Curiosity revealed a lot about Mars in her first year exploring Gale Crater. Learn more about some of her remarkable discoveries in this video from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The first stage of the Atlas V rocket for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission is lifted into an upright position for placement inside the Vertical Integration Facility at Space Launch Comp...

This animation depicts the location of the ChemCam instrument at the top of the mast on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity and the field of view of the instrument's camera, called the Remote Micro-Imager....

What’s the latest news from Mars? A global dust storm is starting to settle, but still obscures the Martian surface; Curiosity turns six and drills a new rock sample; InSight is more than halfway t...

This scene shows the surroundings of the location where NASA Mars rover Curiosity arrived on the 29th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's mission on Mars (Sept. 4, 2012).

This global map of Mars was acquired on Aug. 2, 2012, by the Mars Color Imager instrument on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

This mosaic image with a close-up inset, taken prior to the test, shows the rock chosen as the first target for NASA's Curiosity rover to zap with its Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument.

This Sept. 25, 2015, view from the Mast Camera on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows a dark sand dune in the middle distance. The rover's examination of dunes on the way toward higher layers of Moun...

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 ...

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover captured this iron-nickel meteorite nicknamed Cacao on Jan, 28, 2023. This meteorite is estimated to be about 1 foot (30 centimeters) across.

This image from the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows an example of a type of geometrically distinctive feature that researchers are using Curiosity to exami...

This graph compares the elemental composition of typical soils at three landing regions on Mars.

The 16 frames in this time-lapse movie show how repeated laser shots from the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity cause a pit to form at the target point in Mar...