Curiosity
NASA’s mega Mars rover Curiosity is
celebrating 1 Year on the Red Planet
since the dramatic, nail biting touchdown
on Aug. 6, 2012 by reveling in a string
of groundbreaking science discoveries
demonstrating that Mars could once have
supported past life - thereby accomplishing
her primary science goal - and with a
promise that the best is yet to come!
“We now know Mars offered favorable
conditions for microbial life billions of years
ago,” said the mission’s project scientist,
John Grotzinger of the California Institute of
Technology in Pasadena, CA.
“Curiosity has landed in an ancient river or
lake bed on Mars,” Jim Green,
Director
of NASA’s Planetary Science Division, told
RocketSTEM.
As 2013 comes to a close, the six wheeled
robot is now speeding onwards towards
Mount Sharp, the huge 3.4 mile (5. 5 km)
high mountain dominating the center
of her Gale Crater landing site - and
which is the primary destination of
the mission.
During Year 1, Curiosity has
transmitted over 190 gigabits
of data, captured more than
71,000 images, fired over
75,000 laser shots to investigate
the composition of rocks and
soil and drilled into two rocks
for sample analysis by the pair
of state-of-the-art miniaturized
chemistry labs housed in her belly SAM and CheMin.
“From the sophisticated instruments on
Curiosity the data tells us that this region
could have been habitable in Mars’ distant
past,” Green told me. “This is a major step
forward in understanding the history and
evolution of Mars.”
Mount Sharp still lies roughly 4 miles (6
kilometers) distant – as the Martian crow flies
- and the rover should arrive there sometime
in the Spring of 2014 if all goes well.
The lower reaches of Mount Sharp are
comprised of exposed geological layers
of sedimentary materials that formed eons
ago when Mars was warmer and wetter,
and much more hospitable to microscopic
life.
“We hope those enticing layers at Mount
Sharp will preserve a broad diversity of other
environmental conditions that could have
affected habitability.” says Grotzinger.
Read more about Curiosity’s adventures
in the January 2013 and April 2013 issues of
RocketSTEM, as well as in future issues.
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