Astronomy
A great class. See you at the next one!
Matt
Curiosity rover (source: www.wikipedia.org)
The Curiosity
rover is a car-sized Mars rover
currently exploring Gale Crater,
near the equator of Mars.
The
rover is a nuclear-powered,
mobile scientific laboratory,
with dozens of instruments. It is part of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory
(MSL) mission by the United States.
The MSL mission has four main scientific goals:
investigation of the Martian climate, geology, and whether
Mars could ever have supported life, including
investigation of the role of water. It
is also useful preparation for future missions, perhaps a manned mission to Mars. Curiosity
carries the most advanced payload of scientific equipment ever used on the
surface of Mars.[9]
It
launched on November 26, 2011 and successfully landed on Aeolis Palus in Gale Crater on
August 6, 2012 UTC (August 5, 2012 PDT, NASA mission control time).[10]
The rover is the largest to
date, and is designed to examine whether life could have lived on Mars.[11] It
is also designed to study minerals, look for water, and collect radiation data.[12]
The NASA administrator said it will "blaze the trail for human footprints
on Mars".
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