CURIOSITY IMAGES
'Murray Buttes' Mesa
This image, taken with the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera, shows a mesa within the "Murray Buttes" area on Mars showing a complex fracture pattern (black arrow) protruding from the eroding rock. This mesa, which likely represents a remnant of crater floor sediments, lies on top of the sedimentary rocks of the Murray Formation. NASA's Curiosity rover will be exploring this formation.
HiRISE is one of six instruments on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colorado. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Science Laboratory projects for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
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This image acquired on January 21, 2019 by NASAs Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, shows the south polar layered deposits are well illuminated to accentuate the topography.
Everything is (Well) Illuminated
This image shows laser plasmas in a test lab at Los Alamos National Laboratory, N.M., under typical atmospheric pressures on Earth and Mars.
Laser Plasmas on Earth and Mars
This diagram presents some of the processes and clues related to a long-ago lake on Mars that became stratified, with the shallow water richer in oxidants than deeper water was.
Diagram of Lake Stratification on Mars
Streamlined forms in this Martian valley resulted from the outflow of a lake hundreds of millions years more recently than an era of Martian lakes previously confirmed. This image from the Context ...
Outflow Stream from Relatively Recent Martian Lake
NASA's Mars rover Curiosity drilled into this rock target, "Cumberland," during the 279th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's work on Mars (May 19, 2013) and collected a powdered sample of material...
'Cumberland' Target Drilled by Curiosity
At different locations on the surface of the same rock, scientists can use the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity to measure the amount of reflected light at a series of different...
Indication of Hydration in Veins and Nodules of 'Knorr' in 'Yellowknife Bay'
This animation shows a proposed route up Mount Sharp that NASA's Curiosity Mars rover could follow in the future. "Rafael Navarro Mountain" is marked along the way.
The Route Past Rafael Navarro Mountain
This image from the NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows an impact scar on Mars made by pieces of the NASA Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft that the spacecraft shed just before entering the Mar...
Impact Scars from MSL Cruise Stage and Two Balance Weights (Figure 2)
This side-by-side comparison shows the X-ray diffraction patterns of two different samples collected from rocks on Mars by NASA's Curiosity rover.
Signature of Hematite in 'Confidence Hills' Martian Rock
The men and women behind the dramatic landing of NASA's Curiosity rover on Mars in August 2012 were honored with the 2013 Robert J. Collier Trophy from the National Aeronautics Association.
Team Behind Curiosity Receives Collier Trophy
A path resembling a dotted line from the upper left to middle right of this image is the track left by an irregularly shaped, oblong boulder as it tumbled down a slope on Mars before coming to rest...
An Irregular, Upright Boulder on Mars
The first stage of the Atlas V rocket for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission arrives at the Vertical Integration Facility at Space Launch Complex 41 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
Atlas V Arrives at Complex 41
This pair of images shows a "bite mark" where NASA's Curiosity rover scooped up some Martian soil (left), and the scoop carrying soil.
Curiosity Digs In
This mosaic of nine images, taken by the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, shows detailed texture in a conglomerate rock bearing small pebbles and sand-size parti...
Pebbly Sandstone Conglomerate Rock at Curiosity's Waypoint 1
Scientists have now named the four marks near NASA's Curiosity rover where blasts from the descent stage rocket engines blew away some of the Martian surface material.
Naming the Scour Marks
A June 2012 revision of the landing target area for Curiosity, the big rover of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission, reduces the area's size.
Altered Landing Target in Gale Crater, Mars
This map shows unprecedented detail of local variations in Mars' gravitational pull on orbiters. The gravitational mapping has been applied to map variations in the thickness of the planet's crust ...
Local Variations in the Gravitational Pull of Mars
This is the first 360-degree panorama in color of the Gale Crater landing site taken by NASA's Curiosity rover. The panorama was made from thumbnail versions of images taken by the Mast Camera.
Gale Crater Vista, in Glorious Color
Cydonia Labyrinthus is a complex of intersecting valleys that form a polygonal fractured terrain.
Cydonia Labyrinthus (3-D)
Eridania Region Outcrops
Clara Ma, winner of the contest to name NASA's Curiosity rover, in 2009 with an engineering model of the rover (left) and as a graduate student in 2019 (right)
Clara Ma, Then and Now
This field of dunes lies on the floor of an old crater in Noachis Terra, one of the oldest places on Mars.
Colorful Dunes
This image shows engineer Sean Haggert. Wearing a white lab coat, gloves, face mask, and hair covering to protect spacecraft parts from contamination, engineer Sean Haggert places his hands on eith...
Big Wheels Cross The Finish Line...for Now!
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...
Curiosity's Selfie at the 'Mary Anning' Location on Mars
Technicians, at the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, use an overhead crane to move NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover, known as Curiosity, to ...
Deployment Testing