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This month NASA plans to launch its latest and most sophisticated mission ever to the Red Planet: the Mars Science Laboratory. After a dramatic landing in Gale Crater using a skycrane for the final descent, the nuclear-powered rover will drive around one of the richest deposits of clays and sulfates on the planet--the remains of a water-rich era when rivers carved out valley networks. The size of a small car, the rover (named Curiosity) will spend a Martian year exploring the base of the central peak in the crater, thought to be the oldest section

NASA's Mars rover Opportunity is just days away from arriving at the edge of a huge crater after a years-long trek on the Red Planet. Opportunity has been driving for nearly three years toward the crater Endeavour , an immense scar in the Martian surface about 14 miles (22 kilometers) wide. Now the rover is less than 31 feet (50 meters) from the rim and is due to pull up to it later this week, mission scientists said Monday (Aug

By Eric Hand of Nature magazine Gale Crater, a 150-kilometer-wide depression named after an Australian banker-turned-amateur astronomer, has emerged as the preferred destination for the next spacecraft to set wheels on Mars. [More]