Mars Rover | featured news

The rover Curiosity, nearing Mars, has sophisticated tools to help answer the question: Did the Red Planet ever sustain life — and could it today? In a matter of days, a geologist unlike any on Earth will venture into alien territory.

This panoramic shot of the surface of Mars shows an impact crater blasted billions of years ago - and the fresh tracks created by Nasa's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity. Use the zoom tool to see the view in more detail. The scene, which is made up of 817 images taken between December 2011 and May 2012, also includes the rover's own solar arrays and deck in the foreground. Its publication coincided with Opportunity completing its 3,000th day on Mars.

Firing on all engines, NASA's latest rover to Mars executed a course adjustment Wednesday that put it on track for a landing in August.

The one-ton, car-sized Curiosity rocketed from Kennedy Space Center Saturday. The vehicle is on a two-year mission to determine whether life could have existed on Mars.

As big as a car and as well-equipped as a laboratory, NASA's newest Mars rover blows away its predecessors in size and skill. Nicknamed Curiosity and scheduled for launch on Saturday, the rover has a 7-foot arm tipped with a jackhammer and a laser to break through the Martian red rock. What really makes it stand out: It can analyze rocks and soil with unprecedented accuracy. "This is a Mars scientist's dream machine," said NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Ashwin Vasavada, the deputy project scientist. Once on the red planet, Curiosity will be on the lookout for organic, carbon-containing compounds. While the rover can't actually detect the presence of living organisms, scientists hope to learn from the $2.5 billion, nuclear-powered mission whether Mars has - or ever had - what it takes to nurture microbial life.

NASA's surviving Mars rover Opportunity has reached the rim of a 14-mile-wide crater where the robot geologist will examine rocks older than any it has seen in its seven years on the surface of the red planet, scientists said Wednesday....

NASA's next-generation rover mission to the surface of Mars needs more money – again. Nine months before the scheduled launch, the space agency says the mission has burned through its reserves and needs another $82 million to complete testing before liftoff.