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JPL-Caltech / MSSS / NASA
This image looking toward the higher regions of Mount Sharp was taken on September 9, 2015, by NASA’s Curiosity rover. In the foreground, about two miles from the rover, is a long ridge teeming with hematite, an iron oxide. Just beyond is an undulating plane rich in clay minerals, and just beyond that are a multitude of rounded buttes, all high in sulfate minerals. The colors are adjusted so that rocks look approximately as they would if they were on Earth, to help geologists interpret them. This “white balancing” to adjust for the lighting on Mars overly compensates for the absence of blue on Mars, making the sky appear light blue and sometimes giving dark, black rocks a blue cast.
JPL / NASA
Curiosity photographed this feather-shaped iridescent cloud just after sunset on January 27, 2023. Studying the colors in iridescent clouds tells scientists something about particle size within the clouds and how they grow over time. These clouds were captured as part of a follow-on imaging campaign to study noctilucent, or “night-shining” clouds. While most Martian clouds hover no more than 37 miles (60 kilometers) above the ground and are composed of water ice, these clouds appear to be higher in elevation, where it’s very cold. That suggests these clouds are made of carbon dioxide, or dry ice.
JPL / NASA
Scientific instruments mounted on Curiosity’s robotic arm examine rocks on the surface on Sol 4616, or July 31, 2025.
JPL / NASA
A drill hole and brush marks left by Curiosity after it collected a powderized rock sample on November 23, 2024.
JPL-Caltech / MSSS / NASA
A wind-sculpted dune field, observed by Curiosity’s mast camera (mastcam) on December 12, 2015, during the 1,190th Martian day of the rover’s work on Mars. The location is part of Namib Dune in the Bagnold Dune Field.
JPL / NASA
Two views of a century-old penny on Mars, separated by nearly 13 years. This penny is part of a camera-calibration target attached to Curiosity. The MAHLI camera on the rover took this image during Sol 34 (September 9, 2012). The penny is on the MAHLI calibration target as a tip of the hat to geologists’s informal practice of placing a coin or other object of known scale in their photographs. At right, the same penny is seen, rephotographed on June 22, 2025, or Sol 4577, showing almost no visible wear, with only a small coating of dust.
JPL-Caltech / MSSS / NASA
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover captured these clouds just after sunset on March 19, 2021, the 3,063rd Martian day of the rover’s mission. The image is made up of 21 individual images stitched together and color-corrected so that the scene appears as it would to the human eye. The clouds are drifting over “Mont Mercou,” a cliff face that Curiosity has been studying.
NASA
Smaller than a penny, this flowerlike rock artifact was imaged by Curiosity using its Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on February 24, 2022. The “flower,” along with the spherical rock artifacts seen to the right, were made in the ancient past when minerals carried by water cemented the rock.
JPL-Caltech / Malin Space Science Systems / Texas A&M University / NASA
A view of the two moons of Mars comes from a set of images taken by Curiosity as the larger moon, Phobos, passed in front of the smaller one, Deimos, on August 1, 2013.
JPL / NASA
Curiosity casts a shadow, with its robotic arm raised, seen on Sol 4561, or June 5, 2025.
JPL / NASA
Nearly 13 years of wear and tear have left parts of Curiosity’s wheels damaged. Seen on Sol 4518, or April 22, 2025.
JPL-Caltech / SSI / NASA
Curiosity spotted this dust devil with one of its Navigation Cameras at about 11:35 a.m. local Mars time on August 9, 2020, while it was at the Mary Anning drill site. This dust devil was estimated to be about 16 feet (5 meters) wide. Contrast has been modified to make the dust easier to see.
JPL-Caltech / MSSS / NASA
This view from Curiosity’s Mastcam shows a hillside outcrop with layered rocks within the “Murray Buttes” region on lower Mount Sharp, seen on September 8, 2016. The buttes and mesas rising above the surface in this area are eroded remnants of ancient sandstone that originated when winds deposited sand after lower Mount Sharp had formed.
JPL / NASA
Curiosity prepares to leave Gediz Vallis channel, an area that scientists believe may once have held flowing water, on Sol 4321, or October 2, 2024.
JPL-Caltech / MSSS / NASA
These yellow crystals were revealed after Curiosity happened to drive over a rock and crack it open on May 30, 2024. Using an instrument on the rover’s arm, scientists later determined these crystals are elemental sulfur—the first time this kind of sulfur has been found on the Red Planet.
JPL / NASA
Curiosity left a track in a sandy spot on Sol 2408, or May 15, 2019.
NASA
Curiosity used its Mastcam to capture this mosaic of Gediz Vallis on November 7, 2022, its 3,646th Martian day.
JPL-Caltech / LANL / CNES / IRAP / LPGNantes / CNRS / IAS / MSSS / NASA
The dark, golf-ball-size object in this colorized view from the Curiosity’s Chemistry and Camera instrument shows a grid of shiny dots where ChemCam had fired laser pulses used to determine the chemical elements in the target’s composition. The analysis confirmed that this object, informally named “Egg Rock,” is an iron-nickel meteorite.
JPL-Caltech / University of Arizona / NASA
The Curiosity rover appears as a dark speck in this contrast-enhanced view captured by the HiRISE camera aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on February 28, 2025. Trailing behind Curiosity are the rover’s tracks, which can linger on the Martian surface for months before being erased by the wind.
JPL-Caltech / MSSS / Texas A&M University / NASA
Curiosity captured this view of the sun setting at the close of the mission’s 956th Martian day (April 15, 2015), from the rover’s location in Gale Crater. This was the first sunset observed in color by Curiosity.
JPL-Caltech / NASA
On July 26, 2025, Curiosity demonstrated a new multitasking capability while capturing this view. It snapped the 15 images that make up the mosaic while simultaneously communicating with an orbiter. The rover’s tracks cross through a region filled with boxwork formations—hardened ridges created by mineral deposits from subsurface water billions of years ago. This boxwork region is in the lower foothills of Mount Sharp, a three-mile-tall mountain in the center of Gale Crater.
Article originally published at The Atlantic
