NASA’s latest rover, named Curiosity has successfully landed on Mars a few minutes ago. The NASA team members were understandably ecstatic and gleeful as their hard work paid off. The first fruits of their labor arrived in the form of images from Mars.
An artist's depiction of the Curiosity rover on Mars
Using a rocket-powered skycrane, the one-ton rover was lowered onto the Martian surface to begin its two year mission collecting data for research into everything from water on Mars to the planets past life forms.
The NASA employees in the control room celebrate a successful landing.
Doug McCuistion, Director of the Mars Exploration Program for NASA’s Washington Headquarters stated in a recent press release:
“Curiosity is a bold step forward in learning about our neighboring planet, but this mission does not stand alone. It is part of a sustained, coordinated program of Mars exploration. This mission transitions the program's science emphasis from the planet's water history to its potential for past or present life."
It is an exciting time for NASA, and I’m interested to see what comes out of the Curiosity-aided research! The first images from Mars started arriving soon after the Curiosity rover landed, and more should be coming soon. You can find a collection of images from the Curiosity landing on the NASA website.
One of the first images from Mars
PS While the Xbox 360 gamers got a Mars rover landing game for Kinect, PC users can now play around with their own skycrane-delivered rovers in Kerbal Space Program.
UPDATE: Several low resolution images have been posted to the NASA site and can be seen below. Higher resolution images should become available later.
Images courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech
One of the rare times were we
One of the rare times were we can be proud to call our selves human 🙂 This achievement, originally estimated at 10% success shows us that when we as a human species pull together, can accomplish a lot 🙂
Indeed! 😀
Indeed! 😀
It is pretty damn impressive
It is pretty damn impressive if you really let it sink in. That thing is sitting on mars sending snap shots. (I know we’ve already done it, but it’s still really damn cool!)
Great Image, but OH! the
Great Image, but OH! the Latency! How long would the be in ms?
Yeah nice pictures they got
Yeah nice pictures they got there. You get the same result if you stick an old webcam in your butthole. And that does not cost billions of dollars right?
Well they only had 5mbps and
Well they only had 5mbps and its pretty far away 😉 Once the Curiosity deploys its main antenna we should be getting some nice HD photos and videos :).
By the human race you mean:
By the human race you mean: American “Humans” working at NASA/JPL Caltech. Right? Yes! chalk another one up For America – that is: U.S.A ! Plenty of things to be proud about the American Humans. Like the light bulb for instance…
Anyone else notice in that
Anyone else notice in that first screen shot they are running windows 8? Notice the Activate Windows. Thats what I get with the N version of windows 8 haha
😉
😉
I enjoy your writing style
I enjoy your writing style genuinely loving this site. “Nothing is capable of being well set to music that is not nonsense.” by Joseph Addison.
The rover Perseverance has a microphone so we will not only see Mars but will be able to hear it.