Tag Archives: curiosity

Mars we’re onto you, again!

Posted on August 6, 2012 | Comments Off on Mars we’re onto you, again!

And how. Lots of fun watching NASA-TV on the Web via C/Net as the new robot Curiosity—about the size of an Austin Mini Cooper automobile—touched down on the Red Planet thirty-nine minutes after midnight Sunday here, or about 3 p.m. Martian time.

A gentle touchdown, apparently, as Curiosity quickly sent back the first photos of one of its wheels and the distant Martian horizon. They were relayed to Earth through Odyssey, another NASA robot in orbit—since 2001.

Curiosity is a one ton, mobile chemistry lab and it landed in a basin crater called Gale which is believed to contain sediments washed downhill a long, long time ago that may contain… Who knows? We’ll be finding out in the next two years and, probably, even longer.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Science/Engineering, Scribbles, Space

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Curiosity: A new Mars landing

Posted on July 31, 2012 | Comments Off on Curiosity: A new Mars landing

Curiosity is the latest NASA rover to visit the Red Planet. It’s on final approach this week and scheduled to drop in after midnight Saturday Texas time. The JPL folks will be biting their nails during the seven-minute, automatic descent to touchdown (watch the dramatic explanatory video at the link).

(The WordPress dashboard is refusing to let me try to finesse a correction above. So I have to do it obviously. Curiosity is scheduled to drop in after midnight Sunday Texas time. Sorry about the mistake.)

It will be twice that long before the first radio signal confirmation that all is well (or not) returns to California. More here on the Mars Science Laboratory called Curiosity. Click on the pix to enlarge it for reading without a magnifying glass.

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Posted in Science/Engineering, Space

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