NASA’s Curiosity rover has spent over 5,000 days on Mars, snapping hundreds of thousands of photos in its search for signs of water and life. The mission was originally planned to last two years when it landed on Aug. 6, 2012. Instead, it has kept going for more than 14 years, climbing a mountain, surviving global dust storms, and returning images that keep surprising the scientists back on Earth.
Each sol, a Martian day, the rover’s 17 cameras snap hundreds of photographs, and well over 780,000 images have now reached Earth. Among them, some pictures have grown into icons, and NASA has chosen 10 of the strangest and most beautiful shots to celebrate the occasion.
The Mountain That Wouldn’t Stay Behind
Mount Sharp stands as the main target for the rover, a 3.4-mile-high peak that rises above the surrounding land. About a year and a half after touchdown, on Sol 548, Curiosity took a picture of the mountain, which showed it rising above the horizon.
Instead of merely reaching its destination, the rover kept going, scaling more than half a mile up into the mountain’s lower slopes while covering a total distance of over 23.6 miles from where it first touched down. At every station along the route, it carried out significant scientific work.
A Blue Sunset on Mars
On April 15, 2015, during Sol 956, Curiosity snapped its very first color picture of a sunset on Mars. The shot revealed a strikingly blue sky just as the sun sank below the distant mountains. NASA explains that the usual Martian sky runs from yellow to orange, since the fine dust particles there spread red and yellow light throughout the whole sky.
The particles in the air are small enough to let blue light pass through them. The light coming from the sun is mostly blue, particularly when the sun sits low above the horizon. This is what made the sunset look blue in the picture.
A Selfie in the Sand
During its mission, Curiosity has captured several selfies, with the one from Sol 1128 standing out because of how it came together. The rover’s arm camera snapped 57 separate images on Jan. 19, 2016, which were combined into one full-body picture. In the image, Curiosity rests beside Namib Dune, part of the dark sand dunes that form the Bagnold Dune Field near Mount Sharp.
The rover sampled the sand for analysis and scuffed the dune with its wheels so scientists could see how the sand moves. It’s a simple image, but it shows the rover’s daily routine of sampling and testing.
The Rock That Looks Like a Door
A truly strange image arrived on Sol 3466, when Curiosity transmitted a photograph that seemed to depict a small door cut into the side of a cliff. Its rectangular outline bore an uncanny resemblance to a doorway, and it’s not hard to picture tiny green individuals strolling through it alongside their miniature green companions.
It’s not actually a doorway for Martians. NASA explains that the 3-foot-tall opening’s boxy shape is caused by vertical fractures intersecting with horizontal layers in the rock. The cliff is highly fractured, and a large chunk of rock that likely fell from the “doorway” is clearly visible nearby.
A Cloud That Shines at Night
On Sol 3724, just after the sun went down on Jan. 27, 2023, Curiosity took a photo of a noctilucent (night-shining) cloud. It formed much higher in the Martian atmosphere than most other clouds do, which made it rare and unusual.
Since the cloud is so high, it’s much colder. Scientists think it’s made of carbon dioxide, or dry ice, instead of water ice. The iridescent colors in the cloud indicate that the ice particles are all around the same size, which means the cloud likely just formed at the time of the photo.
Finding Cacao
The very next sol, on Jan. 28, 2023, Curiosity found an iron-nickel meteorite measuring about a foot across. The meteorite, nicknamed “Cacao,” is one of a handful of meteorites the rover has photographed. The rover zapped part of the meteorite with a laser and measured the vapor released to identify what materials the rock was made of.
The long life of meteorites on Mars comes from the planet’s cold, dry conditions. Such markers offer evidence for changes in the Martian atmosphere through time. Large iron meteorites found there point to an atmosphere once far denser than what exists now.
Sulfur Crystals Underfoot
In June 2024, Curiosity accidentally drove over a rock and broke it apart. What came out was a yellow, odorless discovery: rare crystals of pure sulfur. Though Mars is full of minerals that hold sulfur, such as sulfate, this marked the first time pure sulfur had been found on the planet.
Scientists found evidence that the planet has the right conditions to form elemental sulfur, a discovery that matters greatly for researchers exploring its chemical makeup. The crystals themselves revealed the presence of the substance, marking it as a notable addition to what is known about the world’s composition.
Moments of Discovery
The 10 photos capture unexpected aspects of Mars, from its sky to its rocks to its wind-blown sand. Each image offers a glimpse of a world that humans have only seen through machines.
The red sky’s color comes from how Mars’ air works. The picture of the machine taken by the machine itself shows how it was built. The “door” proves that nature can copy what we make. The stone from space found on the ground tells a very old story about our whole neighborhood in space.
What Mars is made of, how it changes over time, and how it compares to Earth — each image relates a distinct story on those subjects.
This mission has greatly surpassed its initial objectives. Its original planned duration was two years, yet it has now operated for over 14. The vehicle was meant to arrive at the base of Mount Sharp, but instead it has ascended halfway up the mountain. What was originally intended merely as a photographic record has produced hundreds of thousands of images.
Climbing steep slopes and enduring dust storms have kept the rover’s cameras operational, though the ordeal has left its tires with large holes.
More images keep showing up, adding to the image of Mars that researchers are putting together.
Key Facts Box
- Mission launched: Aug. 6, 2012
- Mission duration: Over 14 years
- Days on Mars: 5,000+
- Cameras: 17
- Photos sent: More than 780,000
- Distance traveled: Over 23.6 miles (38 km)
- Mountain height: 3.4 miles (5.5 km)
- Meteorite nickname: “Cacao”
- Selfie component images: 57
Further pictures from the rover are still coming in. They may prove just as odd as what has already been seen.
See the 10 photos at Live Science.
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