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.
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 