Curiosity (MSL) Stories

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NASA’s Curiosity Rover Clocks 4,000 Days on Mars

6 min read

The mission team is making sure the robotic scientist, now in its fourth extended mission, is staying strong, despite wear and tear from its 11-year journey. Four thousand Martian days after setting its wheels in Gale Crater on Aug. 5, 2012, NASA’s…

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NASA’s Curiosity Reaches Mars Ridge Where Water Left Debris Pileup

5 min read

Believed to be a remnant of powerful ancient debris flows, Gediz Vallis Ridge is a destination long sought by the rover’s science team. Three billion years ago, amid one of the last wet periods on Mars, powerful debris flows carried…

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Cracks in Ancient Martian Mud Surprise NASA’s Curiosity Rover Team

5 min read

A new paper suggests the same conditions that created the cracks could have been favorable to the emergence of microscopic life.

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NASA’s Curiosity Rover Faces Its Toughest Climb Yet on Mars

6 min read

Shortly before the rover’s 11th anniversary on the Red Planet, its team helped guide it up a steep, slippery slope to examine meteor craters.

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NASA’s Curiosity Captures Martian Morning, Afternoon in New ‘Postcard’

3 min read

After completing a major software update in April, NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover took a last look at “Marker Band Valley” before leaving it behind, capturing a “postcard” of the scene. The postcard is an artistic interpretation of the landscape, with color added…

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Why – and How – NASA Gives a Name to Every Spot It Studies on Mars

5 min read

Martian maps are full of monikers recognizing places on Earth, explorers, and even cartoon characters.

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NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover Gets a Major Software Upgrade

4 min read

The update brings loads of improvements, the most significant being new driving capabilities.

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NASA’s Curiosity Views First ‘Sun Rays’ on Mars

3 min read

The veteran rover captured a dazzling sunset at the start of a new cloud-imaging campaign.

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NASA’s Curiosity Finds Surprise Clues to Mars’ Watery Past

6 min read

Among other discoveries made by the rover, rippled rock textures suggest lakes existed in a region of ancient Mars that scientists expected to be drier. When NASA’s Curiosity rover arrived at the “sulfate-bearing unit” last fall, scientists thought they’d seen…

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What is the Chemistry and Mineralogy Instrument?

11 min read

An instrument aboard the Mars Curiosity Rover that analyzes powdered rock samples to study the role that water, an essential ingredient for life as we know it, played in forming minerals on Mars Minerals are like a time capsule; they provide…

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