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Curiosity's New Home

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These are the first two full-resolution images of the Martian surface from the Navigation cameras on NASA's Curiosity rover, which are located on the rover's "head" or mast. The rim of Gale Crater can be seen in the distance beyond the pebbly ground.

The topography of the rim is very mountainous due to erosion. The ground seen in the middle shows low-relief scarps and plains. The foreground shows two distinct zones of excavation likely carved out by blasts from the rover's descent stage thrusters.

These are full-resolution images, 1024 by 1024 pixels in size.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

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I just love these little robots they send to mars they are so cute, :) even though some have been lost. Mars is a interesting planet. We know by a Mars rock found on our planet that contained organisms smaller then found in earth, so life did start there and some say maybe seeded our planet. However something happen to stop that growth, Mars has the biggest volcano in the solor system and maybe erupted in heat that stopped the growth. I believe we are to trying to find out how we can restart that growth.

Edited by docyabut2
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Wow, so many inaccuracies in one post, it's difficult to know where to start.

To call Curiosity "little" is to demonstrate an almost total lack of knowledge of it. It weighs close to a ton and is around the size of a car.

No rover has ever been lost, although several landers have. No US Mars mission has failed since Mars Polar Lander in 1999.

We do not "know" that Mars had/has life. The Alan Hills meteorite (the Mars rock you refer to) is not proof of such tiny micro-organisms. Further research has demonstrated that chemical reactions, not biological, are the more likely origin of the structures some thought to be fossils.

We can't be trying to discover how to "restart the growth" since we have no unambiguous evidence that there was ever life on Mars to begin with.

The very point of Curiosity is to look for signs of life.

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qoute-The very point of Curiosity is to look for signs of life.

DA :),Then why are they looking for sighs of life?

Edited by docyabut2
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DA :),Then why are they looking for sighs of life?

Erm, to find out if there is any.

Why would they be looking for signs of life if they already know it exists?

Maybe you spend a lot of your time looking for things when you already know where they are, but most of the rest of the world doesn't. They tend to not waste time by focusing on looking for things they don't know the location or existence of. This really isn't rocket science (well, Curiosity is, but your question isn't).

A word to the wise, next time you start a post with "DA" make sure you don't follow it up with a really, REALLY dumb question.

Edited by Waspie_Dwarf
typo.
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However British experts said the evidence, though exciting, had to be treated with caution and could not be taken as conclusive.
Dr John Bridges, a planetary scientist at the Natural History Museum who has studied Martian meteorites, said: "This is an interesting contribution to the research on this very important rock, but I don't see it as definitive evidence of life on Mars.

Your move.

Edited by Waspie_Dwarf
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To get back on topic:


First 360-Degree Panorama From NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover

PASADENA, Calif. -- Remarkable image sets from NASA's Curiosity rover and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter are continuing to develop the story of Curiosity's landing and first days on Mars.

The images from Curiosity's just-activated navigation cameras, or Navcams, include the rover's first self-portrait, looking down at its deck from above. Another Navcam image set, in lower-resolution thumbnails, is the first 360-degree view of Curiosity's new home in Gale Crater. Also downlinked were two, higher-resolution Navcams providing the most detailed depiction to date of the surface adjacent to the rover.

"These Navcam images indicate that our powered descent stage did more than give us a great ride, it gave our science team an amazing freebie," said John Grotzinger, project scientist for the mission from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "The thrust from the rockets actually dug a one-and-a-half-foot-long [0.5-meter] trench in the surface. It appears we can see Martian bedrock on the bottom. Its depth below the surface is valuable data we can use going forward."

Another image set, courtesy of the Context Camera, or CTX, aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has pinpointed the final resting spots of the six, 55-pound (25-kilogram) entry ballast masses. The tungsten masses impacted the Martian surface at a high speed of about 7.5 miles (12 kilometers) from Curiosity's landing location.

Curiosity's latest images are available at: http://1.usa.gov/MfiyD0 .

Wednesday, the team deployed the 3.6 foot-tall (1.1-meter) camera mast, activated and gathered surface radiation data from the rover's Radiation Assessment Detector and concluded testing of the rover's high-gain antenna.

Curiosity carries 10 science instruments with a total mass 15 times as large as the science payloads on NASA's Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity. Some of the tools, such as a laser-firing instrument for checking rocks' elemental composition from a distance, are the first of their kind on Mars. Curiosity will use a drill and scoop, which are located at the end of its robotic arm, to gather soil and powdered samples of rock interiors, then sieve and parcel out these samples into the rover's analytical laboratory instruments.

To handle this science toolkit, Curiosity is twice as long and five times as heavy as Spirit or Opportunity. The Gale Crater landing site places the rover within driving distance of layers of the crater's interior mountain. Observations from orbit have identified clay and sulfate minerals in the lower layers, indicating a wet history.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera is operated by the University of Arizona in Tucson. The instrument was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Exploration Rover projects are managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The rover was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver built the orbiter.

For more about NASA's Curiosity mission, visit: 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 .

For more about NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mro .

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

2012-235

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Wasp not to be a smartie, or anything:) , but why did we even go to Mars if we didn`t think there was once life there, after finding that Mars rock.

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Wasp not to be a smartie, or anything:) , but why did we even go to Mars if we didn`t think there was once life there, after finding that Mars rock.

The MSL mission has four scientific goals: Determine whether Mars could ever have supported life — including the role of water, study the climate and geology of Mars. It is also useful preparation for a future manned mission to Mars.

To contribute to these goals, MSL has six main scientific objectives:[12][21]

  1. Determine the mineralogical composition of the Martian surface and near-surface geological materials.
  2. Attempt to detect chemical building blocks of life (biosignatures).
  3. Interpret the processes that have formed and modified rocks and soils.
  4. Assess long-timescale (i.e., 4-billion-year) Martian atmospheric evolution processes.
  5. Determine present state, distribution, and cycling of water and carbon dioxide.
  6. Characterize the broad spectrum of surface radiation, including galactic radiation, cosmic radiation, solar proton events and secondary neutrons.

As part of its exploration, it also measured the radiation exposure in the interior of the spacecraft as it traveled to Mars, and it is continuing radiation measurements as it explores the surface of Mars. This data would be important for a future manned mission.[22]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Science_Laboratory

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Wasp not to be a smartie, or anything:) , but why did we even go to Mars if we didn`t think there was once life there, after finding that Mars rock.

I'm afraid you are demonstrating faulty logiic as well as a lack of knowledge here.

We were sending missions to Mars BEFORE we found that rock. The Viking landers were looking for signs of life on Mars in 1976. The Alan Hills meteorite was not found until 1984, and the announcement of possible fossils not made until 1996. Why did we send them?

We have sent missions to the Moon, to Venus, to Mercury, to asteroids and so on, all places where we do not believe there to be life. Why did we send them?

We send missions to learn more about our solar system. The search for life is just part of this.

You are making a connection between the ALH 84001 meteorite and Mars exploration which does not exist. Missions such as Curiosity would go ahead even if it had not been discovered.

I repeat no unambiguous evidence of life has been found on Mars.

Edited by Waspie_Dwarf
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Right the Viking landers 1970`s to take pictures and dig, the tests were not conculsive. however the rovers to further search in the 1990`s after the rock was found in 1984.I don`nt think we would have gone back to further dig if we didn`t think life once existed there.They do think there were once seas there that supported life. Something destroyed the planet and it may have been a Olympus Mons eruption the largest volcano in the solar system on Mars. What else would have trown rocks all the way to earth.

Edited by docyabut2
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Right the Viking landers 1970`s to take pictures and dig, the tests were not conculsive. however the rovers to further search in the 1990`s after the rock was found in 1984.I don`nt think we would have gone back to further dig if we didn`t think life once existed there.They do think there were once seas there that supported life. Something destroyed the planet and it may have been a Olympus Mons eruption the largest volcano in the solar system on Mars. What else would have trown rocks all the way to earth.

How about an impact of an asteroid? Or several impacts?

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How about an impact of an asteroid? Or several impacts?

Which is exactly what the scientists think happened.

docyabut2, once again you are not being logical. You have a fixation with Olympus Mons and ALH 84001, but demonstrate a lack of knowledge of both.

If it takes Olympus Mons to throw rocks off of the surface of a planetary body how do you explain the presence of meteorites of Lunar origin?

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*facepalm* my brain hurts waspie.

also amazing photos people can say mars is boring but i think theres something oddly beautiful about the martian landscape

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people can say mars is boring but i think theres something oddly beautiful about the martian landscape

Buzz Aldrin's description of the moon is, in my opinion, also appropriate for Mars,

Magnificent desolation.
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If life is found on Mars, will it be possible to keep it alive and study it.

I suspect so.

Bringing back alien micro-organisms to earth is likely to cause all sorts of problems though. There will be a huge number of protests and predictions of alien diseases leading to the end of mankind.

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If at some future time, we colonize Mars AND try to terraform it, HOW do we jump - start the planet's magnetic field ? Terraforming Mars without a magnetic field seems like trying to bail the water from the Titanic with a mop & bucket.

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*facepalm* my brain hurts waspie.

also amazing photos people can say mars is boring but i think theres something oddly beautiful about the martian landscape

The only reason people say Mars is boring is because their expectations are too high, meaning: they want ruines and skeletons, and all that. Things like a Hoagland is spreading all over the internet.

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No they want fresh green grass an a beach with lovely blue water as the sun sets, ...ruins an skeletons are a bonus,

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does anyone remember when scientists found plumes of methane in the martian atmosphere, and they said its either bilogical or geological. but not sure. the plumes of methane seem to increase in the summer months on mars. well does anyone know if Gale crater is located in one of the areas were the methane was present? and if it is will curiosity be able to detect it etc...

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We had a guy here, don't know if he's still around, who used to insist that Mars is a green lush planet with oceans and forests, etc. and ALL the rover pics and satellite maps are fakes. CGI or shot in the Arizona desert somewhere.

I've never understood the purpose of such a bizarre and over-the-top conspiracy. Getting a bunch of either actors or NASA personnel who know otherwise, to pretend they were celebrating landing Curiosity on Mars and film them and have it broadcast on the news. Generating hundreds of thousands of pictures of satellites pics mapping Mars to insane detail (<0.5m resolution in some MRO pics). Faking pics from other satellites that overlap and agree with each other. Getting the ESA in on NASA's act and having them take satellite photos that also overlap and look the same (but subtly different and at a different resolution to make it seem like it was from a different orbiter with a different camera taking pictures at different times than NASA). Launching actual rockets from Cape Canaveral to pretend it's got a Mars orbiter or rover on board. Having NASA engineers and scientists (or actors pretending to be engineers and scientists) be interviewed by BBC and lie on camera to make that documentary about the Mars Science Laboratory I saw couple of weeks ago. Arranging with educational institutions like Arizona State University and their astronomy department to help process and host online the faked pics and with Caltech to have them managed the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Fake some landers or orbiters that failed their missions. Make it look like they are struggling to maintain their budget from year to year (the conspiracy heads tell us that NASA basically has an unlimited black budget) . Putting up all those videos and interviews for the media on their website about rovers landing on a cold desert planet looking for signs of life, when it's really a warm luscious planet teeming with life. Faking all that info and data about temperature, rocks, soil, atmosphere, climate, etc. to make it look like it's cold, desert, rocky, thin atmosphere, has some but hardly any water, etc. I could go on.... but seriously. An enormous bizarre conspiracy to hide civilization or life on Mars for what purpose?

It'd be less hassle to just actually put damn orbiters and rovers on Mars and show us the 'truth'.

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does anyone remember when scientists found plumes of methane in the martian atmosphere, and they said its either bilogical or geological. but not sure. the plumes of methane seem to increase in the summer months on mars. well does anyone know if Gale crater is located in one of the areas were the methane was present? and if it is will curiosity be able to detect it etc...

THats right stevewinn ! just under the surface is massive rivers,and my little monkey and I found that its quite nice in UnderMArs ! ! ITs those pesky Aliens that come to mine with there slaves that are sketchy !

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I was born just before the end of World War II. Since then, I've seen so many "impossible" things happen - the sound barrier broken, satellites and later man in orbit, man on the moon, every planet* and some moons photographed from within a reasonable distance, Voyagers 1 and 2 plus Pioneers 10 and 11 at or beyond the limits of our solar system (Waspie, please correct me on that if I'm in error.) and exploration of our neighbor, Mars. Curiosity is, to me, a marvel in a long line of marvels and the photos being sent back are breathtaking. It is one more piece of science fiction becoming science fact and I'm lovin' it.

* except Pluto and we're getting there.

Edited by Kludge808
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