Curiosity Has Landed!
Early this morning at 5:32 UTC, NASA’s Curiosity rover has successfully landed on Mars, only one minute later than scheduled. The spectacular landing went without a hitch. “The Seven Minutes of Terror has turned into the Seven Minutes of Triumph,” said NASA Associate Administrator for Science John Grunsfeld.
After a 36-week flight Curiosity, also known as Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), begins a two-year mission on the surface of the red planet. The main goals of are to determine whether Mars could ever have supported life, study the climate and the geology of Mars, as well as plan for a future human mission to Mars.
See also: Monthly Stargazing Calendar for August 2012
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Paul Tomaszewski
Paul Tomaszewski is a science & tech writer as well as a programmer and entrepreneur. He is the founder and editor-in-chief of CosmoBC. He has a degree in computer science from John Abbott College, a bachelor's degree in technology from the Memorial University of Newfoundland, and completed some business and economics classes at Concordia University in Montreal. While in college he was the vice-president of the Astronomy Club. In his spare time he is an amateur astronomer and enjoys reading or watching science-fiction. You can follow him on LinkedIn and Twitter.
One Comment
Tom
It won’t, but it will ensure that some human beings survive once we exhaust this world and kill each other for the last scraps of food and drops of water.