Explore the Spirit and Opportunity Martian rovers

Planetary exploration and the search for extraterrestrial life kicked off with Viking

NASA's Viking 1 and 2 missions revealed Mars' geological activity and potential for past life through their evidence of past surface water. Viking 1 held the record for the longest Mars surface operation until the Opportunity rover surpassed it in 2010.

The Viking landers were the first spacecraft to conduct experiments on Mars

NASA’s Viking 1 and 2 missions tested soils for signs of life, captured images, and studied the Martian atmosphere, revealing evidence of ancient water flow, volcanic soil, and a thin carbon dioxide atmosphere.

What is Mars Curiosity rover up to?

Mars continues to reveal itself through the Mars Curiosity Rover, which continues to ramble and roll across the red planet's surface. Here is NASA’s real-time portal for Mars exploration, featuring the latest news, images, and discoveries from the Red Planet. See evidence of the ancient rivers that once ran through the martian landscape, and see how Curiosity is setting the scene for possible future exploration by humans.

View the surface of Mars from NASA's Perseverance

Simulate a visit to the red planet with the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover. This 3D interactive experience lets you explore various locations on the martian surface. See closeup images the rover has taken and view key points of interest. It's the next best thing to being there and certainly far safer!

Explore a timeline of NASA's exploration of Mars

NASA has studied Mars extensively over 60 years using telescopes, orbiters, and rovers. From April 2021 to January 24, the Ingenuity helicopter completed its technology demonstration objective by flying more than 17 kilometers above the Martian surface.

Read the NASA overview of the results of Viking’s biological experiments on Mars

Three experiments on the Viking 1 and 2 landers searched for signs of metabolic activity in soil samples, indicating the presence of microorganisms. No definitive evidence of life was found in any experiment or lander imaging.

From 2018 to 2022, NASA's InSight Lander used three primary instruments to measure Martian seismic activity, subterranean heat flow, and wobbles of its north pole.

NASA's ESCAPADE mission will study Mars' atmosphere

The $80M mission—a collaboration between private companies, universities, and NASA—sent two copy machine-sized orbiters on a Blue Origin rocket to the red planet to study its magnetic field and atmospheric loss.

The team responsible for the first interplanetary sundials included Bill Nye

While reviewing designs for instruments to be carried by future Mars rovers, Nye suggested adapting the function of a calibration tool, which would be used by the Spirit and Opportunity rovers to help calibrate the brightness and color of their panoramic cameras on the Martian surface.

View the first photos ever taken from the Martian surface, courtesy of NASA's Viking Project.

Explore a timeline of every mission to Mars through 2020

The US has conducted the most missions (23) and has the highest success rate (74%), followed by Russia (18 missions at 5%). The first successful orbiter was Mariner 4, while Viking 1 was the first successful lander.

NASA's 1997 Mars rover was named in Truth's honor

In 1997, NASA's Mars Pathfinder mission landed on the red planet. Its rover was named Sojourner in Truth's honor—a name selected by a 12-year-old student in a nationwide essay contest about a historical hero.

NASA uses extreme Earth environments to prepare for space exploration

Analog missions in volcanic terrains and craters mimic Martian and lunar environments. Crew members operating in these missions, including at sites in Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and Hawai'i, test suits and specialized space instruments under simulated conditions.

Explore a gallery of photographs of Mars taken from space

Spacecraft have been taking pictures of Mars from space since 1965, when the Mariner 4 probe became the first to beam back an image of a planet other than our own. The technology has significantly evolved since then, with ultra-high definition resolutions revealing previously unseen surface features.

The first flight on Mars carried a piece of the Wright plane with it

In April 2021, the solar-powered helicopter Ingenuity—attached to NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover—flew in what became the first controlled flight on a planet other than Earth. Carried with it was a piece of fabric from the famous 1903 Wright Flyer, a symbol of Ingenuity’s continuation of the Wright tradition.

Launched in 2020, NASA's Perseverance rover was equipped with a deployable helicopter

Nicknamed "Percy" and designed as the successor to the Curiosity rover, the vehicle has covered more than 36 kilometers (22 miles), collected dozens of samples, and taken hundreds of images while searching for signs of ancient microbial life.

Some 19th century astronomers thought Mars was inhabited

As telescope technology advanced, astronomers became able to observe the surfaces of objects in our solar system with greater detail. The dips, valleys, and lines crisscrossing Mars, particularly, captured onlookers' imagination, leading some to speculate that the seemingly organized features could only have been created by an intelligent civilization.

Supersonic parachutes have allowed rovers to safely land on Mars' surface

The disk-band-gap parachute design was first developed for the Viking Project in the 1970s. Since then, it has been reinforced and uses stronger materials to handle larger payloads—including the 2020 Perseverance rover—landing it a world record.

View an interactive collection of historical documents from the Viking project

This collection includes original mission bulletins, engineering and planning documents, and interview segments from more than 80 Viking team members who made the historic exploration of Mars’ surface by a lander possible.

A prototype greenhouse for Biosphere 2 is now part of a test habitat for Mars

The Space Analog for the Moon and Mars combines the Test Module greenhouse with a workshop, kitchen, common area, sleeping quarters, and a yard that mimics lunar and Martian surfaces. A blind crew member in SAM’s first mission, Inclusion I, helped assess accessibility in potential future space habitats.

A four-billion-year-old meteorite reignited the debate about life on Mars

Recovered from Antarctica in 1984, ALH84001 contained organic compounds, magnetite and iron sulfide grains of potential biological origin, and features that resembled fossilized bacteria. With technological advancements, scientists found abiotic origins for these features in the following decades.

Internet sleuths solve secret message on Perseverance rover’s Mars parachute

In 2020, the Perseverance Rover landed on Mars, sending a message for the folks back home on its parachute. It took fewer than six hours for the Internet's collective forces to decode the secret slogan hidden in the parachute's colors and patterns, as well as the geographic coordinates of the earth-bound place where rocketry was perfected.

Viking established entry, descent, and landing methods for future planetary visits

The most significant engineering challenge was slowing the Viking lander, which would move through space at nearly 29,000 kilometers per hour before reaching Mars. This required the invention of supersonic parachute technology, which is still used today.

Perseverance captures an aurora on Mars

The Perseverance rover captured the first visible Martian aurora, offering insights into Mars's atmospheric interactions. A coronal mass ejection likely triggered the aurora since the planet lacks a global magnetic field.

Everything you need to know about Mars

The Lunar and Planetary Institute provides assorted resources about the red planet, Mars. Review this basic 101 level introduction and get to know our solar system neighbor. Learn about Mars' planet-wide dust storms, staggeringly high mountains (six of which dwarf Mount Everest), and whether there's water there below the surface.

Besides Earth, Mars is the only possibly habitable planet in our solar system

Sending humans to Mars in the following decades poses significant challenges, from the vast distance covered to get materials there to powering technology during weekslong dust storms. Research is ongoing to develop life support systems that can regenerate or recycle consumables.

The European Space Agency placed a lander on the surface of a comet in 2014

Launched in 2004, the Rosetta spacecraft performed three flybys of Earth and one of Mars as gravitational slingshots to gain the necessary velocity to successfully place the Philae lander module on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Philae achieved a soft landing only after bouncing twice from failed deployments of its anchoring harpoons.

The Mars Climate Orbiter—a $125M spacecraft designed to study Martian weather and climate—was lost because ground software used imperial units while onboard software used metric units.

B2 models the interactions of air, water, soil, plants and microbes at the LEO

The Landscape Evolution Observatory at Biosphere 2 examines how factors such as climate change, water flow, weathering and community development impact landscape structures comprising 500 metric tons of crushed rock. Research is also conducted at biomes representing savannas, mangroves, coastal fog deserts, oceans and rainforests.

Explore a world map of Mars

The yellows spots scattered across the map indicate meteor impacts while the red regions represent volcanoes and their associated lava flows. The varying shades of brown indicate cratered highlands and midlands, which make up most of the southern hemisphere.

Geological features on Mars' surface provide evidence of massive past flooding

The presence of river valleys, enormous canyons, and other structures carved by water on Earth suggests that water flowed abundantly across Mars' surface. The layering of rocks in the walls of these structures indicates the intensity and volume of these flows.

Watch the trailer for 'Goodnight Oppy'

The 2022 documentary, narrated by Angela Bassett, tells the story of NASA's Opportunity rover, which launched in 2003 to explore Mars. The film was named Best Documentary Feature at the 7th Critics' Choice Documentary Awards.

Ambient sounds on Mars are lower-pitched and more muted than those on Earth

The planet's thin atmosphere absorbs higher frequencies, and audio captured by the Perseverance rover from the Ingenuity Mars helicopter revealed that sound waves travel farther than previous atmospheric models suggested.

Why extremophiles may play an important role in terraforming Mars

Possessing unique biochemicals that can detoxify extreme environments and resilience against the Martian surface that is lethal to humans, scientists are exploring whether colonies of these organisms can transform small areas of the Red Planet into future habitats for humans. Extremophiles may also be best equipped to serve as microscopic factories for the fabrication of essential polymers.

Mars features distinct geographic contrasts between its northern and southern regions

Unlike the uniform terrains found in most rocky planets, Mars has a smooth, low northern hemisphere and a rough, high southern hemisphere with much thicker crust. This dichotomy may originate from a massive collision early in the planet’s history.

Congress settled for the Viking program after canceling the Voyager Mars program

NASA's proposed Voyager missions to Mars and Venus in the 1970s were canceled due to budget cuts and the Apollo 1 fire. The Viking program's smaller scope—focused on data collection—was the economically viable alternative to manned Mars mission proposals.

Mars once had oceans and a thick atmosphere

It formed over millions of years as small clumps of matter orbiting the sun smashed together, solidified, and cooled. Geological features indicate the presence of past surface water, which evaporated away due to the planet's weak gravitational field.

While geography pertains to Earth's surface features, areography pertains to Mars

Unlike Earth, Mars lacks geological activity and oceans, though geological evidence suggests they both existed in the past. Its northern regions have far fewer craters than the southern ones, indicating that the rock in the north formed more recently.

Exoplanet atmospheric gas patterns may indirectly provide evidence for life

When searching for life beyond the solar system, scientists first determine the range of distances from a star that liquid water—believed to be essential for life—can be found. Within this habitable zone, the presence of specific molecules in an exoplanet's atmosphere—detectable through spectral analysis—can indicate the presence of living things known to produce those compounds.

Explore a collection of moon interactives from NASA, including a 3D lunar surface explorer, a tool for classifying moon rocks, and an interactive map for observing the moon each day of the year.

Viking mission planning director Gentry Lee (1942–) on getting to Mars

"We didn't know then what we know now, which is how tough it really is to land on Mars."

From the surface, Mars can appear butterscotch, golden brown, and even green

Images from orbiters, landers, and rovers show that Mars has a mix of surface colors resulting from variations in the mineral compositions of different regions. The reddish tint when viewed from Earth comes from kicked up particles of rusted iron.

ESA’s Juice and NASA’s Europa Clipper will search for habitability near Jupiter

Three of Jupiter’s moons—Ganymede, Europa, and Callisto—possess subsurface oceans that may support life. While Clipper will perform flybys of Europa, Juice will be the first spacecraft to orbit a moon in the outer Solar System.

The inhabitability of the Martian environment presents significant colonization risks

Terraforming the thin atmosphere, toxic dust, extreme cold, and lack of magnetic field is infeasible, given limitations to the size of what can be sent to Mars. NASA and SpaceX are instead exploring creating underground shelters.

A global list of every space exploration mission

Learn how and why we explore our solar system and beyond with space exploration missions, and find out how you can get involved.

NASA explores Earth's deepest oceans to prepare for space

By studying extreme environments in Earth's hadal zone—the deepest part of the ocean —NASA tests technologies, probes life under crushing pressure, and gathers clues about potential oceans and possible life on worlds like Europa and Enceladus.

Martian skies and sunsets resembled Earth's hundreds of millions of years ago

Evidence suggests that Mars has had a thicker atmosphere, which included greenhouse gases, and a magnetic field in its past, resembling Earth's current composition. After losing its magnetic field—the protection from solar wind—the atmosphere and its associated atmospheric phenomena gradually disappeared.

Astrobiology is the study of life's origins and the search for life beyond Earth

The field incorporates observational missions to find and classify exoplanets—planets orbiting stars besides the sun—the probing of Earth's most extreme environments to learn what conditions allow life to exist, and theoretical and lab work to identify and analyze potential biochemical signatures.

A case study of how engineers and geologists at Tullow Oil look for oil reserves

An analysis of surface rocks using aerial and satellite imagery can help narrow the search for crude oil by identifying basins where sedimentary layers have compacted—a key process in oil formation. Surveys that look for variations in Earth's gravitational and magnetic fields consistent with specific rock distributions, or that use sound waves reflected off rock layers—not unlike sonar underwater—can also help map subsurface geology.

Mar's moons, Phobos and Deimos, are thought to be captured asteroids

Of the two Martian moons, Phobos orbits more quickly, completing three revolutions a day. It gets 1.8 meters closer to Mars every year, and may crash into the planet in about 50 million years.