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Image: NASA handout image of the Curiosity rover on Mars

Science News

Curiosity's space odyssey to Mars

Trace the Curiosity rover's journey to Mars and see the pictures that the six-wheeled robot has sent back from the Red Planet.

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Image: NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab Holds Viewing Of Mars Curiosity Rover Landing

Caring for Curiosity

NASA's Curiosity rover is as big as a compact car and weighs a ton ... and it's on Mars. Here's where the journey began. A white-room team works on the six-wheeled spacecraft on Aug. 13, 2011, at the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Nasa / Getty Images North America
Image: NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab Holds Viewing Of Mars Curiosity Rover Landing

Liftoff!

An Atlas 5 rocket rises from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Nov. 26, 2011, with NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft sealed inside its payload fairing. That spacecraft, in turn, enclosed and protected the Curiosity rover.

Nasa / Getty Images North America
Image: NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab Holds Viewing Of Mars Curiosity Rover Landing

Mohawk Guy at work

Activity lead Bobak Ferdowsi works inside the Spaceflight Operations Facility for NASA's Curiosity rover at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., on Aug. 5, 2012 - the rover's landing day. Ferdowsi, who adopts a fresh hairdo for each space mission, became an Internet sensation thanks to his stars-and-stripes Mohawk and his youthful manner.

Pool / Getty Images North America
Image: Jasper Goldberg, 22, and Andreas Bastian, 22, watch a live broadcast of the NASA Mission Control center, as the planetary rover \"Curiosity\" lands on Mars, in Time Square

Curious about Curiosity

Jasper Goldberg and Andreas Bastian, both 22, watch live NASA coverage of Curiosity's descent to Mars on the giant video screen in New York's Times Square.

Andrew Burton / X02815
Image: Collins waits during the \"seven minutes of terror\" as the Mars science rover Curiosity approaches the surface of Mars, prior to a successful landing, at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena

Watching and waiting

Steve Collins waits for word at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's mission control room during the "seven minutes of terror" as Curiosity approaches the surface of Mars on Aug. 5. Collins was working at JPL in 1993 when NASA's Mars Observer probe was lost just before its scheduled arrival at the Red Planet.

Fred Prouser / X00224
Image: The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) team in the MSL Mission Support Area reacts after learning the Curiosity rover has landed safely on Mars, at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena

Touchdown!

The Mars Science Laboratory team in the Mission Support Area at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory reacts after learning that the Curiosity rover has landed safely on Mars. The happy news came at 10:31 p.m. PT Aug. 5 (1:31 a.m. ET Aug. 6).

Handout / X80001
Image: Mars science rover Curiosity Lands

From Mars to Times Square

Spectators in New York's Times Square cheer the announcement that NASA's Curiosity rover successfully landed on Mars.

Peter Foley / EPA
Image:

Great catch!

As it flew high above, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured this picture of the Curiosity rover and its parachute descending to the Martian surface on Aug. 5. The inset image has been processed to bring out additional detail in the view of the rover and the chute.

NASA
Image: NASA's Curiosity Rover Captures Mars

Flying saucer

A color image shows the Mars Science Laboratory's heat shield, as seen by a camera on the Curiosity rover during the spacecraft's descent on Aug. 5. The picture was obtained by the Mars Descent Imager instrument, also known as MARDI, and shows the 15-foot (4.5-meter) diameter heat shield when it was flying away 50 feet (16 meters) below the spacecraft. This image shows the inside surface of the heat shield, with its protective multilayered insulation.

Nasa / Getty Images North America
Image: This image released by NASA August 7, 20

The mountain ahead

One of the first views from NASA's Curiosity rover, which landed on Mars on Aug. 5, shows the rover's shadow in the foreground and a 3-mile-high mountain known as Aeolis Mons or Mount Sharp in the distance. That mountain is the rover's eventual destination. The picture was taken through a "fisheye" wide-angle lens by one of the rover's hazard avoidance cameras.

Ho / AFP
Image: This NASA image released August 9, 2012

Miles and miles on Mars

This image, released on Aug. 9, shows part of the deck of NASA's Curiosity rover as seen by one of the rover's navigation cameras. The rover's pointy low-gain antenna and its paddle-shaped high-gain antenna are among the pieces of hardware visible in the foreground. The rim of Gale Crater can be seen at the horizon.

Ho / AFP
Image: NASA's Curiosity Rover Captures Mars

Curiosity's crime scene

The four main pieces of hardware that arrived on Mars with NASA's Curiosity rover are pinpointed in this image from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, taken 24 hours after landing. The heat shield was the first piece to hit the ground, followed by the back shell attached to the parachute. The rover itself was lowered to the ground on cables by its rocket-powered sky crane. The cables were cut, and then the sky crane flew away to its own crash landing.

Nasa / Getty Images North America
Image: This NASA image obtained August 8, 2012

What a blast!

This is a portion of the first 360-degree black-and-white panoramic view acquired by the navigation cameras aboard NASA's Curiosity rover. Two disturbed areas are visible in the foreground, where the rocket thrusters on Curiosity's sky crane blasted away the surface gravel to reveal bedrock below. The high country of Gale Crater's rim can be seen in the distance.

Ho / AFP
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First color picture

An image from the Curiosity rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager, or MAHLI, provides the first color view of the north wall and rim of Gale Crater. The picture was taken by the MAHLI camera at the end of Curiosity's stowed robotic arm. The view appears fuzzy because of the dust that has settled on the camera's removable cover.

Hopd / NASA
Image: NASA's Curiosity Rover Captures Mars

Mars in living color

A color image from NASA's Curiosity Rover shows the pebble-covered surface of Mars. This is a portion of the first color 360-degree panorama from NASA's Curiosity rover, made up of thumbnails, which are small copies of higher-resolution images. The mission's destination, a mountain at the center of Gale Crater called Aeolis Mons or Mount Sharp, can be seen in the distance rising up toward the left. Blast marks from the rover's descent stage are in the foreground.

Nasa / Getty Images North America
Image: This composite image, with magnified insets, depicts the first laser test by the Chemistry and Camera, or ChemCam, instrument aboard NASA's Curiosity Mars rover on Mars

Pew-pew

This composite image, with magnified insets, shows the results of the first laser test by the ChemCam instrument aboard NASA's Curiosity rover on Mars. The composite incorporates a Navcam image taken prior to the test, with insets taken by the camera in ChemCam. The circular insert highlights the rock before the laser test. The square inset is further magnified and processed to show the effect of the laser blasts on Aug. 19.

Nasa / Jpl - Caltech / X80001
Image: Image: The Mars Curiosity rover's robotic arm takes aim at Mount Sharp in a mosaic that combines navigation-camera imagery from Sols 2, 12 and 14 (Aug. 8, 18 and 20).

Looking ahead

The Mars Curiosity rover's robotic arm takes aim at Mount Sharp in a mosaic that combines navigation-camera imagery from Sols 2, 12 and 14 (Aug. 8, 18 and 20). Mount Sharp, also known as Aeolis Mons, is a 3-mile-high mountain within Gale Crater that will be the rover's ultimate destination.

Image: NASA handout image shows the landing site of NASA's Curiosity rover on Mars

Future mapped out

NASA's Curiosity rover landed inside Gale Crater at the green dot, within the Yellowknife quadrangle, on Aug. 5. The team has decided to send it first to the region marked by a blue dot, that is nicknamed Glenelg. That area marks the intersection of three kinds of terrain. Then the rover will aim for the blue spot marked "Base of Mt. Sharp," where a natural break in Martian sand dunes will provide an opening for Curiosity to begin scaling the lower reaches of Mount Sharp.

Nasa / X00653
Image: SPACE-US-MARS

First steps

Curiosity's navigation camera system looks back at the wheel tracks from the rover's first test drive on Aug. 22. The $2.5 billion rover made its first moves a little more than two weeks after its arrival on Mars.

Ho / AFP
Image: SPACE-US-MARS

Mount Sharp

Mount Sharp is seen in the distance in an image taken Aug. 23 by the 34-millimeter Mast Camera on Curiosity. The gravelly area around Curiosity's landing site is visible in the foreground. Farther away, about a third of the way up from the bottom of the image, the terrain falls off into a depression (a swale). Beyond the swale, in the middle of the image, is the boulder-strewn, red-brown rim of a moderately-sized impact crater. Father off in the distance, there are dark dunes and then the layered rock at the base of Mount Sharp. Some haze obscures the view, but the top ridge, depicted in this image, is 10 miles (16.2 kilometers) away. Scientists enhanced the color to show the Martian scene under the lighting conditions we have on Earth.

- / AFP
Image: Will.I.Am

Hip-hop on Mars

Will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas sings at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Aug. 28. Will.i.am's "Reach for the Stars" officially became the first song broadcast from Mars, thanks to a signal beamed from Curiosity.

Nick Ut / AP
Image: Small spherical objects

Mmm, Marsberries!

Small spherical objects fill the field in this Martian mosaic combining four images from the Microscopic Imager on NASA's Opportunity rover. The Sept. 6 view covers an area about 2.4 inches (6 centimeters) across, at an outcrop called Kirkwood in the Cape York segment of the western rim of Mars' Endeavour Crater. Shortly after its landing in 2004, Opportunity spotted similar spherules that were nicknamed "blueberries," but these berries are not as rich in iron, posing a scientific puzzle.

Nasa/jpl-caltech/cornell Univ./ / NASA HANDOUT
Image: SPACE-MARS

'Do I look fat?' Curiosity checks its belly

A mosaic of photos taken on Sept. 9 by the Mars Hand Lens Imager on NASA's Curiosity rover shows the underside of the rover and its six wheels, with Martian terrain stretching back to the horizon. The four circular features on the front edge of the rover are the lenses for the left and right sets of Curiosity's hazard avoidance cameras, or Hazcams. Because of the different perspectives used for different images, some of the borders of the photos don't line up precisely.

Ho / AFP
Image: Mars Rover To Examine Rock

A Martian rock called Jake

NASA's Curiosity rover stopped about 8 feet (2.5 meters) in front of this Red Planet rock on Sept. 19, the mission's 43rd Martian day, or sol. The pyramid-shaped chunk was the first rock that the Curiosity rover touched for science's sake. It was named "Jake Matijevic" in honor of a top engineer who worked on every one of NASA's rover missions — but passed away just days after Curiosity's landing. Jake the rock, which measures about 10 inches (25 centimeters) tall, provided a good reference point for the rover's sophisticated instruments.

Nasa / Getty Images North America
Image: Handout of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity cut a whell scuff mark into a wind-formed ripple at the \"rocknest\" site

Rover's footprint

NASA's Curiosity rover cut a wheel scuff mark into a wind-formed ripple at the "Rocknest" site on Mars to give researchers a better opportunity to examine the particle-size distribution of the material forming the ripple. The rover's right navigation camera took this image of the scuff mark on the mission's 57th Martian day, or sol (Oct. 3), the same sol that a wheel created the mark. For scale, the width of the wheel track is about 16 inches (40 centimeters).

Handout / X80001
Image: NASA handout image of the Curiosity rover on Mars

Rover's self-portrait

The Curiosity rover used the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) to capture the set of thumbnail images stitched together to create this full-color self-portrait in this Oct. 31, 2012 image from NASA.

Nasa / X00653
Image: Curiosity's First Sample Drilling

Life on Mars?

The first sample of powdered rock extracted by the drill of Curiosity is seen on Feb. 20, 2013. Powder drilled out of a rock on Mars contains the best evidence yet that the Red Planet could have supported living microbes billions of years ago, the team behind NASA's Curiosity rover said March 12, 2013.

Curiosity rover sees life-friendly conditions in ancient Mars rock.

Nasa/jpl-caltech/msss / Handout / NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
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The big picture

This picture isn't from the Curiosity rover - it's a 2003 image from the Hubble Space Telescope, showing the full disk of Mars. The big picture hints at how much we'll be learning about the Red Planet during Curiosity's two-year, $2.5 billion mission. And that's just the beginning: Scientists hope the nuclear-powered rover will last years or even decades longer.

NASA
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