Mars Curiosity Rover

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory, carrying the Curiosity rover, landed in Gale Crater on 6 August 2012 using a never-before-attempted sky crane system. Within the first year, Curiosity's Sample Analysis at Mars instrument confirmed that the crater once hosted a freshwater lake with the chemistry necessary to support microbial life — the most significant discovery in the search for extraterrestrial life and the clearest evidence yet that Mars was once habitable.