NASA's Curiosity rover just logged its 5,000th Martian day. Here is how a two-year mission became a 14-year climb, and what it found on the way.
Curiosity reached sol 5,000 on Aug. 30, 2026. On Sept. 16, NASA marked it with a two-toned postcard of morning and evening views, like this 2025 one.
An Atlas V rocket launched Curiosity from Cape Canaveral on Nov. 26, 2011. The trip to Mars took more than eight months.
On Aug. 5, 2012 (PT), a rocket-powered sky crane lowered Curiosity on cables into Gale Crater. The primary mission was planned for about two years.
Curiosity is about the size of a Mini Cooper and weighs 1,982 pounds. It carries 17 cameras and runs on a nuclear power source, not solar panels.
Rocks at Yellowknife Bay showed Gale Crater once held a lake. In 2013, scientists concluded its water could have supported microbes long ago.
In February 2013, Curiosity drilled a rock called John Klein, the first rock sample ever drilled on Mars. This selfie shows the rover at that spot.
Drill samples revealed organic molecules in 3-billion-year-old mudstone in 2018. In 2025, NASA reported the largest yet, with up to 12 carbon atoms.
In early 2016, Curiosity studied the Bagnold Dunes, the first up-close look at active sand dunes on another planet.
In 2018, a planet-wide dust storm darkened Mars and silenced the solar-powered Opportunity rover. Curiosity's nuclear power kept it working.
Since 2024 it has found pure sulfur crystals and boxwork ridges left by ancient groundwater. At sol 5,000, it is still climbing the 3-mile-tall mountain.