Goal1: Determine whether life ever arose on Mars

These images from the NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show several impact scars on Mars made by pieces of the NASA Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft that the spacecraft shed just before entering ...

No bones about it! Seen by Mars rover Curiosity using its MastCam, this Mars rock may look like a femur thigh bone. Mission science team members think its shape is likely sculpted by erosion, eithe...

Large-scale crossbedding in the sandstone of this ridge on a lower slope of Mars' Mount Sharp is typical of windblown sand dunes that have petrified. NASA's Curiosity Mars rover used its Mastcam to...

With NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) spacecraft sealed inside its payload fairing, the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket lifts off from Space Launch Complex-41 on Cape Canaveral Air Force ...

This color image from NASA's Curiosity rover shows an area excavated by the blast of the Mars Science Laboratory’s descent stage rocket engines

This image from NASA's Mars Curiosity rover shows the "Amargosa Valley," on the slopes leading up to Mount Sharp on Mars.

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).

The NASA and Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) logos appear above the American flag and Atlas logo on the payload fairing atop the 197-foot-tall United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket.

This graph compares a typical daily pattern of changing atmospheric pressure (blue) with the pattern during a regional dust storm hundreds of miles away (red).

Engineers test Curiosity's hill-climbing capabilities using her Earthbound twin.

The landing site for NASA's Mars rover Curiosity was chosen for giving the mission access to examine the lower layers of a mountain inside Gale Crater.

Since landing on Mars in August 2012, NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has fired the laser on its Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument more than 100,000 times at rock and soil targets up to about 2...

Follow along on a tour of the landing scene of NASA's Curiosity rover in this video made up of images from two NASA orbiters. The movie begins with a global image from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor, ...

The heat shield for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory is the largest ever built for a planetary mission.

This image from NASA's Curiosity rover shows the cover on an inlet that will receive powdered rock and soil samples for analysis.

Download a PDF of the Mars Science Laboratory Launch Press Kit.

This map shows the route driven by NASA's Curiosity Mars in its approach to and April 1, 2014, arrival at a waypoint called "the Kimberley," which rover team scientists chose in 2013 as the locatio...

The rippled surface of the first Martian sand dune ever studied up close fills this Nov. 27, 2015, view of "High Dune" from the Mast Camera on NASA's Curiosity rover. This site is part of the "Bagn...

With a view taken from inside the Vertical Integration Facility at Space Launch Complex 41 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, the final solid rocket motor (SRM) hangs in an upright pos...

The Mars Descent Imager for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory took this image inside the Malin Space Science Systems clean room in San Diego, Calif., during calibration testing of the camera in June 2...

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has driven within robotic-arm's reach of the sandstone slab at the center of this April 23 view from the rover's Mast Camera.

This view from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity shows an example of cross-bedding that results from water passing over a loose bed of sediment.

These 26 holes represent each of the rock samples NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has collected as of early July 2020. A map in the upper left shows where the holes were drilled along the rover's route...

Download a PDF of the Mars as Art Booklet.

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.