The rover Curiosity has discovered water in fine-grained soil on the surface of Mars, NASA confirmed Thursday in a series of papers published in the journal Science. Each cubic foot of Martian soil contains about two pints of liquid water, though the molecules are bound to other minerals in the soil. Curiosity first landed on Mars in August 2012 on Gale Crater, near the equator of the planet. Its... 

Stuart Atkinson combines 55 photos taken with the rover’s MAHLI camera, which sits outstretched on the end of the arm of NASA’s Curiosity rover, October 31, 2012. NASA’s Curiosity rover has analyzed Martian soil for the first time and has found some organic chemicals essential to support life. On Monday, NASA announced the finding of the robot’s onboard chemical laboratory, which had sampled...