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Curiosity Lands on Mars


Waspie_Dwarf

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Curiosity Lands on Mars

Curiosity Lands on Mars

Mon, 06 Aug 2012 06:32:54 AM GMT

NASA's Curiosity rover has landed on Mars! Its descent-stage retrorockets fired, guiding it to the surface. Nylon cords lowered the rover to the ground in the "sky crane" maneuver. When the spacecraft sensed touchdown, the connecting cords were severed, and the descent stage flew out of the way. The time of day at the landing site is mid-afternoon -- about 3 p.m. local Mars time at Gale Crater. The time at JPL's mission control is about 10:31 p.m. Aug. 5 PDT (early morning EDT).

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Edited by Waspie_Dwarf
Corrected title.
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Curiosity's Early Views of Mars

This image shows one of the first views from NASA's Curiosity rover, which landed on Mars the evening of Aug. 5 PDT (early morning hours Aug. 6 EDT). It was taken through a "fisheye" wide-angle lens on one of the rover's Hazard-Avoidance cameras. These engineering cameras are located at the rover's base. As planned, the early images are lower resolution. Larger color images are expected later in the week when the rover's mast, carrying high-resolution cameras, is deployed. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Source: NASA - MSL - Multimedia

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I was a child of 8 on July 20th 1969. I remember staring with sheer amazement at a black and white TV screen as Neil Armstrong stepped off the ladder and onto the surface. Even at 8 I knew what a moment this was....

We didn't see a man stand on the Mars surface today but we still saw all men reach out and touch another world after a feat of mechanical gymnastics that were breathtaking. What these scientists did was amazing and they deserve applause.

GO Curiosity!

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A fantastic achievement - i'm looking forward to seeing what Curiosity finds over the coming weeks and months.

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NASA's New Mars Rover Sends Higher-Resolution Image

PASADENA, Calif. - About two hours after landing on Mars and beaming back its first image, NASA's Curiosity rover transmitted a higher-resolution image of its new Martian home, Gale Crater. Mission Control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., received the image, taken by one of the vehicle's lower-fidelity, black-and-white Hazard Avoidance Cameras - or Hazcams.

The black-and-white, 512 by 512 pixel image, taken by Curiosity's rear-left Hazcam, can be found at: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/multimedia/msl5.html.

"Curiosity's landing site is beginning to come into focus," said John Grotzinger, project manager of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission, at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "In the image, we are looking to the northwest. What you see on the horizon is the rim of Gale Crater. In the foreground, you can see a gravel field. The question is, where does this gravel come from? It is the first of what will be many scientific questions to come from our new home on Mars."

While the image is twice as big in pixel size as the first images beamed down from the rover, they are only half the size of full-resolution Hazcam images. During future mission operations, these images will be used by the mission's navigators and rover drivers to help plan the vehicle's next drive. Other cameras aboard Curiosity, with color capability and much higher resolution, are expected to be sent back to Earth over the next several days.

Curiosity landed at 10:32 p.m. Aug. 5, PDT, (1:32 a.m. EDT, Aug. 6) near the foot of a mountain three miles (about five kilometers) tall inside Gale Crater, 96 miles (nearly 155 kilometers) 7in diameter. During a nearly two-year prime mission, the rover will investigate whether the region has ever offered conditions favorable for microbial life, including the chemical ingredients for life.

The mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The rover was designed, developed and assembled at JPL, a division of Caltech.

For more information on the mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mars and http://www.nasa.gov/mars and http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/msl.

Follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity and http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity

Guy Webster/D.C. Agle 818-354-5011

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov / agle@jpl.nasa.gov

Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726

NASA Headquarters, Washington

Dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov

2012-231

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Looking forward to color photos over the next couple days, very interesting stuff, its a great achievement :tu:

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Now ! Isnt this a lot better than talking trash about how man dosnt do anything Great and ,we cant do this or that. We did this ! The world did this,not just one country the World community @@ Its good to be an Explorier !

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Fantastic. It's going to be very interesting to see what sorts of results this mobile laboratory reveals. So glad it made it to the surface in one piece.

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Now ! Isnt this a lot better than talking trash about how man dosnt do anything Great and ,we cant do this or that. We did this ! The world did this,not just one country the World community @@ Its good to be an Explorier !

I think this is great news but there will always be the few that will say "Why did they waste money on this? Why not spending it on curing cancer?"

Great job mankind. :tu:

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I think this is great news but there will always be the few that will say "Why did they waste money on this? Why not spending it on curing cancer?"

Great job mankind. :tu:

In a strange way we are curing cancer just by going ! The evolution is much deeper than just the skin.We are reaching out Looking for the next great Discovery.

In by doing this we find the pieces of the Human puzzle. You never know what wonders await us in the Infinity of our Path thru the Universe.

If the world really wanted to cure cancer its would be a snap of the Ck book ! ITs all our Human greed that holds that evolution back !

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Great job so far...

Should get exciting from here on in.

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hirise_curiosity_parachute.jpg

Curiosity photographed during descent by the HiRISE camera on board Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Amazing.

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hirise_curiosity_parachute.jpg

Curiosity photographed during descent by the HiRISE camera on board Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Amazing.

Just out of curiosity :w00t: do you know if there are more of those type pics?

That is, is that the only one taken during descent? Would love to see them.

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Congratulations to the Curiosity team! Looking forward to all the pics/discoveries in the future. NOT looking forward to the next generation of 'Look what NASA is hiding' (ruins, statues, fossils, etc.) hoaxes. I am curious how long 'till the first ones show up.

Edited by Gaden
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Congratulations to the Curiosity team! Looking forward to all the pics/discoveries in the future. NOT looking forward to the next generation of 'Look what NASA is hiding' (ruins, statues, fossils, etc.) hoaxes. I am curious how long 'till the first ones show up.

Not long, but this one comes with a healthy doses of sarcasm, lol:

http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=30093&st=30#entry4402836

:lol:

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Still Boggles the Mind !

:tu: :tu: :tu: :tu: :tu:

Still Boggles the Mind !

:tu: :tu: :tu: :tu: :tu:

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I think this is great news but there will always be the few that will say "Why did they waste money on this? Why not spending it on curing cancer?"

Great job mankind. :tu:

How much money has the world wasted on wars and other BS? If that money had been spent on space exploration instead, we would have been living on Mars and Venus by now.

BTW well done to NASA!

Edited by 27vet
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This was a complicated piece of remote space flying, and it was from the start. About 15 hours ago, trying to stuifle a scream like any of you who watched heard from JPL, there was a tear for those fine people and the magnificent job they did.

..As always.

Another illustration of NASA at its best, showing the difficulty of putting a vehicle on the surface of another planet, with a 8-12 minute round trip radio transmission time.... :cry:

It's tough, but we've seen successful Mars landings before, and we saw a successful landing on Titan! And that was with an hour from sending a command and it's being received!

I think curiosity will astound, much as spirit and opportunity have.

We're about to start finding out! :tsu:

:tsu: :tsu: :tsu: Way to go, gang...AGAIN!!

top_jplBanner_landing.png

Edited by MID
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and we saw a successful landing on Titan!

We did, but (pardon me being both pedantic and partisan) Cassini may have been a NASA project but the Huygens lander was made by ESA.

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