Curiosity
 | With its rover Curiosity the mision Mars Science Laboratory is part of NASA's "Mars Exploration Program", a long-term effort of robotic exploration of the red planet. Curiosity was designed to assess whether Mars ever had an environment able to support small life forms called microbes. In other words, its mission is to determine the planet's "habitability." To find out, the rover carries the biggest, most advanced suite of instruments for scientific studies ever sent to the martian surface. The rover will analyze samples scooped from the soil and drilled from rocks. The rover's onboard laboratory will study rocks, soils, and the local geologic setting in order to detect chemical building blocks of life (e.g., forms of carbon) on Mars and will assess what the martian environment was like in the past.
The rover carries a radioisotope power system that generates electricity from the heat of plutonium's radioactive decay. This power source gives the mission an operating lifespan on Mars' surface of a full martian year (687 Earth days) or more.
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Following Curiosity on Mars
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Landing: "Curiosity" landed on 6th August 2012 at 7:32. Spanish time. |
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ESA also follows Curiosity: ESA spacecraft records crucial NASA signals from Mars Welcome to Mars, Curiosity! |
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8th August, one of the first images taken by the mission |
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The chart provides a timeline of events that occurred in the afternoon landing |
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The first steps of "Curiosity": Two weeks after its arrival to Mars and after testing some of its instruments begins to move. |
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The first high-resolution colour images show rock layers where the research for the chemical ingredients of life of Mars focuses. |
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The rover has set off from its landing vicinity on a trek to a science destination about 400 meters away |
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NASA's Curiosity rover mission has found evidence that a stream once ran vigorously across the area on Mars where the rover is driving.
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* NASA Mars Rover Fully Analyzes First Soil Samples , 3rd of Desember: Mars Curiosity rover has used its full array of instruments to analyze Martian soil for the first time, and found a complex chemistry within the Martian soil. Water and sulfur and chlorine-containing substances, among other ingredients, showed up in samples Curiosity's arm delivered to an analytical laboratory inside the rover |
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