Mars rover Curiosity: Images from the Red Planet

In this handout image provided by NASA, one of the first images taken by NASA's Curiosity rover, which landed on Mars on the evening of Aug. 5, 2012 PT, and transmitted to Spaceflight Operations Facility for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover at Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. The MSL Rover named Curiosity is equipped with a nuclear-powered lab capable of vaporizing rocks and ingesting soil, measuring habitability, and whether Mars ever had an environment able to support small life forms called microbe.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech via Getty Images