By analyzing radar images like the one at top of this montage, scientists discovered evidence for a past ice age in the northern polar ice cap of Mars.
By analyzing radar images like the one at top of this montage, scientists discovered evidence for a past ice age in the northern polar ice cap of Mars.
On May 12, 2016, astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured this striking image of Mars, when the planet was 50 million miles from Earth.
On May 12, 2016, astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured this striking image of Mars, when the planet was 50 million miles from Earth.
NASA's Curiosity Mars rover measures the concentration of methane in the atmosphere at Gale Crater. A one-time spike in methane, up to about 7 parts per billion occurred during Curiosity's first Martian year. Variations in much lower background levels of methane may be seasonal.
By monitoring weather through two Martian years since landing in Gale Crater, NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has documented seasonal patterns in variables such as temperature, water-vapor content and air pressure. Each Mars year lasts nearly two Earth years.
By monitoring weather through two Martian years since landing in Gale Crater, NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has documented seasonal patterns in variables such as temperature, water-vapor content and air pressure. Each Mars year lasts nearly two Earth years.
This graphic illustrates where Mars mineral-mapping from orbit has detected minerals that can indicate where a volcano erupted beneath an ice sheet. The site is far from any ice sheet on modern Mars, in an area where unusual shapes have been interpreted as a possible result of volcanism under ice.
This early-morning view from the Mastcam on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover on March 16, 2016, covers a portion of the inner wall of Gale Crater. At right, the image fades into glare of the rising sun. Details such as gullies and debris fans help geologists understand processes that shaped the crater.
This 360-degree panorama from the Mastcam on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows the rugged surface of 'Naukluft Plateau' plus upper Mount Sharp at right and part of the rim of Gale Crater. The April 4, 2016, scene is dominated by eroded remnants of a finely layered ancient sandstone deposit.
This 360-degree panorama from the Mastcam on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows the rugged surface of 'Naukluft Plateau' plus upper Mount Sharp at right and part of the rim of Gale Crater. The April 4, 2016, scene is dominated by eroded remnants of a finely layered ancient sandstone deposit.
The team operating NASA's Curiosity Mars rover uses the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on the rover's arm to check the condition of the wheels at routine intervals.
At 11:02 a.m. EDT on April 7, 2001, crowds watch a Boeing Delta II rocket lift off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, carrying NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft into space on its seven-month journey to Mars.
Morning clouds fill Coprates Chasma on Mars in this Nov. 25, 2015, image from the THEMIS camera on NASA's Mars Odyssey. No orbiter systematically observed Mars in morning sunlight before 2015. The clouds appear blue because ice particles in them scatter blue light more strongly than other colors.
From its perch high on a ridge, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity recorded this image of a Martian dust devil twisting through the valley below.
This March 21, 2016, image from the navigation camera on NASA's Mars rover Opportunity shows streaks of dust or sand on the vehicle's rear solar panel after a series of drives during which the rover was pointed steeply uphill. The tilt and jostling of the drives affected material on the rover deck.
A shadow and tracks of NASA's Mars rover Opportunity appear in this March 22, 2016, image, which has been rotated 13.5 degrees to adjust for the tilt of the rover. The hillside descends to the left into 'Marathon Valley.' The floor of Endeavour Crater is seen beneath the underside of a solar panel.
Buzz Aldrin, an Apollo 11 astronaut who walked on the moon, makes a holographic appearance in 'Destination: Mars,' a mixed-reality tour of a part of Mars that NASA's Curiosity rover has explored.
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 and to deduce information about its deeper interior.
This Mars map shows variations in thickness of the planet's crust, the relatively thin surface layer overlying the mantle of the planet. It shows unprecedented detail derived from new mapping of variations in Mars' gravitational pull on orbiters.
Newly detailed mapping of local variations in Mars' gravitational pull on orbiters (center), combined with topographical mapping of the planet's mountains and valleys (left), yields the best-yet mapping of Mars' crustal thickness (right).
NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, nearing the 10th anniversary of its arrival at Mars, used its High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera to obtain this view of an area with unusual texture on the southern floor of Gale Crater.
The European Space Agency's ExoMars 2016 mission, combining the Trace Gas Orbiter and Schiaparelli landing demonstrator, launches on a Proton launch vehicle from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The orbiter carries two relay radios provided by NASA.
This view shows nodules exposed in sandstone that is part of the Stimson geological unit on Mount Sharp, Mars. The nodules can be seen to consist of grains of sand cemented together.
The nodule in the center of this March 10, 2016, image from the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows individual grains of sand and (on the right) laminations from the sandstone deposit in which the nodule formed..
Patches of Martian sandstone visible in the lower-left and upper portions of this view from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover have a knobbly texture due to nodules apparently more resistant to erosion than the host rock in which some are still embedded.
Patches of Martian sandstone visible in the lower-left and upper portions of this view from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover have a knobbly texture due to nodules apparently more resistant to erosion than the host rock in which some are still embedded.
This map shows the route driven by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover from where it landed in 2012 to its location in early March 2016, approaching 'Naukluft Plateau.' As the rover continues up Mount Sharp, its science team has been refreshed by a second round of NASA participating-scientist selections.
NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, nearing the 10th anniversary of its arrival at Mars, used its High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera to obtain this view of an area with unusual texture on the southern floor of Gale Crater.
NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter arrived at Mars on March 10, 2006. Over the past decade, the mission has shown how dynamic Mars remains today, as well as how diverse its past environmental conditions have been.
The close encounter between comet Siding Spring and Mars flooded the planet with an invisible tide of charged particles from the comet's coma. The dense inner coma reached the surface of the planet, or nearly so. The comet's powerful magnetic field temporarily merged with, and overwhelmed, the planet's weak field, as shown in this artist's depiction.
This HiRISE image shows gullies on a south-facing slope of a crater touched with late-Spring carbon dioxide frost. At this time of year, only the south-facing slopes of craters retain their frost, while the frost on the north-facing slopes has melted.
The orbit of MAVEN sometimes crosses the orbit of Phobos. This image shows the configuration of the two orbits in early December 2015, when MAVEN's Phobos observations were made.
This stereo view from NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity looks upward at "Knudsen Ridge" on the southern edge of "Marathon Valley" from inside the valley.
This scene from NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity looks upward at "Knudsen Ridge" on the southern edge of "Marathon Valley" from inside the valley.
This scene from NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity looks upward at "Knudsen Ridge" on the southern edge of "Marathon Valley" from inside the valley.
Women working in science, technology, engineering and mathematics at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory pose for a photo in mission control in honor of Women in Science Day.
Wind is one of the most active forces shaping Mars' surface in today's climate. Wind-carved features such as these, called "yardangs," are common on the Red Planet.
The Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on the robotic arm of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover used electric lights at night on Jan. 22, 2016, to illuminate this postage-stamp-size view of Martian sand grains dumped on the ground after sorting with a sieve.
This Jan. 19, 2016, self-portrait of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows the vehicle at "Namib Dune," where the rover's activities included scuffing into the dune with a wheel and scooping samples of sand for laboratory analysis.
The target beneath the tool turret at the end of the rover's robotic arm in this image from NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity is "Private John Potts." It lies high on the southern side of "Marathon Valley," which slices through the western rim of Endeavour Crater.
This Dec. 18, 2015, view of the downwind face of "Namib Dune" on Mars covers 360 degrees, including a portion of Mount Sharp on the horizon. The component images were taken by the Mast Camera on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover. The site is part of the dark-sand "Bagnold Dunes" field of active dunes.
This Dec. 17, 2015, view combines multiple images from the telephoto-lens camera of the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover to reveal fine details of the downwind face of "Namib Dune." Sand on this face of the dark dune has cascaded down a slope of about 26 to 28 degrees.
This stereo view from NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover shows the downwind side of a dune about 13 feet high within the Bagnold Dunes on Mars. The image appears three-dimensional when viewed through red-blue glasses with the red lens on the left. Curiosity's Navcam took the component images on Dec. 17, 2015.
This view from NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover shows the downwind side of a dune about 13 feet high within the Bagnold Dunes field on Mars. The rover's Navigation Camera took the component images on Dec. 17, 2015. As on Earth, the downwind side of an active sand dune has a steep slope called a slip face.
This view from NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover shows the downwind side of a dune about 13 feet high within the Bagnold Dunes field on Mars. The rover's Navigation Camera took the component images on Dec. 17, 2015. As on Earth, the downwind side of an active sand dune has a steep slope called a slip face.
This artist's concept depicts the stationary NASA Mars lander known by the acronym InSight at work studying the interior of Mars. The InSight mission is scheduled to launch in May 2018 and land on Mars six months later. It is designed to investigate processes that formed and shaped Mars and will help scientists better understand the evolution of our inner solar system's rocky planets, including Earth.
This artist's concept depicts the stationary NASA Mars lander known by the acronym InSight at work studying the interior of Mars. The InSight mission is designed to investigate processes that formed and shaped Mars and will help scientists better understand the evolution of our inner solar system's rocky planets, including Earth.
This artist's concept depicts the stationary NASA Mars lander known by the acronym InSight at work studying the interior of Mars. The InSight mission is designed to investigate processes that formed and shaped Mars and will help scientists better understand the evolution of our inner solar system's rocky planets, including Earth.
This graph shows the ratio of concentrations of several elements in four different pairs of targets examined by Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) instruments on NASA Mars rovers Curiosity and Spirit.
NASA's Curiosity Mars rover examined both the "Greenhorn" and "Big Sky" targets with the rover's Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) instrument. Greenhorn is located within an altered fracture zone and has an elevated concentration of silica (about 60 percent by weight). Big Sky is the unaltered counterpart for comparison.
The yellow triangles on this graph indicate concentrations of the elements titanium and silicon in selected rock targets with high silica content analyzed by the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) instrument on NASA's Curiosity rover in Mars' Gale Crater.
This graph presents information from the NASA Curiosity Mars rover's onboard analysis of rock powder drilled from the "Buckskin" and "Greenhorn" target locations on lower Mount Sharp.
The graph at right presents information from the NASA Curiosity Mars rover's onboard analysis of rock powder drilled from the "Big Sky" and "Greenhorn" target locations, shown at left.
The graph at right presents information from the NASA Curiosity Mars rover's onboard analysis of rock powder drilled from the "Buckskin" target location, shown at left.
This view from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover covers an area in "Bridger Basin" that includes the locations where the rover drilled a target called "Big Sky" on the mission's Sol 1119 (Sept. 29, 2015) and a target called "Greenhorn" on Sol 1137 (Oct. 18, 2015).
This view from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover covers an area in "Bridger Basin" that includes the locations where the rover drilled a target called "Big Sky" on the mission's Sol 1119 (Sept. 29, 2015) and a target called "Greenhorn" on Sol 1137 (Oct. 18, 2015).
This image from NASA's Curiosity Mars rover reveals details of a bedrock discoloration pattern at a site between "Marias Pass" and "Bridger Basin." The discoloration is not associated with individual layers. It crosses layers and shows clear horizontal boundaries to the darker toned bedrock. This suggests it is related to alteration by fluids that flowed through fractures and permeated into the bedrock.
This 360-degree panorama shows the "Marias Pass" area, at center, and part of the slope that NASA's Curiosity Mars rover climbed to get there, at right.
This view from NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows an example of discoloration closely linked to fractures in the Stimson formation sandstone on lower Mount Sharp. The pattern is evident along two perpendicular fractures.
This image from the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows detailed texture of a rock target called "Elk" on Mars' Mount Sharp, revealing laminations that are present in much of the Murray Formation geological unit of lower Mount Sharp.
NASA's Curiosity Mars rover used its Navigation Camera (Navcam) to capture this view partway back down a slope it climbed toward "Marias Pass" on lower Mount Sharp. The image was taken May 22, 2015. It includes a silica-rich target rock called "Elk."
NASA's Curiosity Mars rover used its Navigation Camera (Navcam) to capture this view partway back down a slope it climbed toward "Marias Pass" on lower Mount Sharp. The image was taken May 22, 2015. It includes a silica-rich target rock called "Elk."
This May 22, 2015, view from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) in NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows the "Marias Pass" area where a lower and older geological unit of mudstone -- the pale zone in the center of the image -- lies in contact with an overlying geological unit of sandstone.
This May 22, 2015, view from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) in NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows the "Marias Pass" area where a lower and older geological unit of mudstone -- the pale zone in the center of the image -- lies in contact with an overlying geological unit of sandstone.
This map shows the route on lower Mount Sharp that NASA's Curiosity followed between April 19, 2015, and Nov. 5, 2015. During this period the mission investigated silica-rich rock targets including "Buckskin," in the "Maria Pass" area, and "Greenhorn," in the "Bridger Basin" area.
A crate containing NASA's Mars-bound InSight spacecraft is loaded into a C-17 cargo aircraft at Buckley Air Force Base, Denver, for shipment to Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.
This map shows the route driven by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover from the location where it landed in August 2012 to its location in December 2015, at examples of the Bagnold Dunes.
A spacecraft specialist in a clean room at Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver, where the InSight lander is being built, affixes a dime-size chip onto the lander deck in November 2015.
This Dec. 5, 2015, view of the undisturbed surface of a Martian sand dune called "High Dune" shows coarse grains remaining on the surface after wind removal of smaller particles. The image covers an area 1.4 inches across. It was taken by the rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI).
This view shows grains of sand where NASA's Curiosity Mars rover was driven into a shallow sand sheet near a large dune. The scene covers an area 1.3 inches wide, imaged by Curiosity's Mars Hand Lens Imager on Dec. 3, 2015. Sunlight is coming from the left.
A wheel track left by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover exposes underlying material in a shallow sand sheet in this Dec. 2, 2015, view from Curiosity's Mast Camera (Mastcam). The site is close to a large sand dune of similarly dark sand grains.
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 "Bagnold Dunes" field of active dark dunes along the northwestern flank of Mount Sharp.
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 "Bagnold Dunes" field of active dark dunes along the northwestern flank of Mount Sharp.
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took this photo of the Curiosity rover in September 2015, as Curiosity was exploring the boundary between two rock units: the light-toned Murray Formation and the overlying and darker-toned Stimson unit.
JPL's Integrated CubeSat Development Laboratory is 1,250 square feet of pristine tabletops and freshly scrubbed air dedicated to the manufacture and testing of CubeSat spacecraft. Four different CubeSat mission teams can utilize the clean room at the same time.
This graphic depicts paths by which carbon has been exchanged among Martian interior, surface rocks, polar caps, waters and atmosphere, and also depicts a mechanism by which it is lost from the atmosphere with a strong effect on isotope ratio.
Researchers took the Chemical Laptop to JPL's Mars Yard, where they placed the device on a test rover. This image shows the size comparison between the Chemical Laptop and a regular laptop.
The Chemical Laptop, developed at JPL, analyzes liquid samples and detects amino acids and fatty acids. These are both chemicals that are essential to life.
JPL researchers Jessica Creamer, Fernanda Mora and Peter Willis (left to right) pose with the Chemical Laptop, a device designed to detect amino acids and fatty acids. At left is a near-identical copy of the Curiosity rover, which has been on Mars since 2012.
This map shows the route driven by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover from the location where it landed in August 2012 to its location in mid-November 2015, approaching examples of dunes in the "Bagnold Dunes" dune field.
This animation flips back and forth between views taken in 2010 and 2014 of a Martian sand dune at the edge of Mount Sharp, documenting dune activity. The images are from the HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
This view taken from orbit around Mars shows the sand dune that will be the first to be visited by NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover along its route to higher layers of Mount Sharp.
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 Mount Sharp will be the first in-place study of an active sand dune anywhere other than Earth.
The dark band in the lower portion of this Martian scene is part of the "Bagnold Dunes" dune field lining the northwestern edge of Mount Sharp. The scene combines multiple images taken with the Mast Camera on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover on Sept. 25, 2015. The view is toward south-southeast.
This view from the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on the arm of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows a combination of dark and light material within a mineral vein at a site called "Garden City" on lower Mount Sharp.
Light material emplaced within darker vein material is seen in this view of a mineral vein at the "Garden City" site on lower Mount Sharp, Mars. The Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on the arm of NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover took the image on April 4, 2015. The area shown is roughly 0.4 inch wide.
This view from the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on the arm of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows texture within a light-toned vein at a site called "Garden City" on lower Mount Sharp.
These images from the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover indicate similarly dark material, but with very different chemistries, in mineral veins at "Garden City."
These images and overlay bar charts from the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover indicate where some high-potassium material is localized within mineral veins at "Garden City."-