BellaOnline Forums Education Astronomy Curiosity on Mars

The Curiosity rover will land on Mars, August 5. It will travel 12 miles in two years, analyzing soil and looking for a habitable environment. It will look for water, carbon and sources of energy, three things required for the presence of life.

When I got into astronomy over 50 years ago, Mars was little more than a light in the night sky. Now, it is a real place with geology and geography. Astrobiologists maintain that water once flowed and that fossilized microbes may await discovery. There was that meteorite in the mid-90s supposedly from Mars and containing fossils that turned out to be a sham. Imaginations can run wild. The movie 2001: A Space Odyssey forecasted routine travel to the moon by 2001. Instead, that year is remembered for the 9/11 attacks. When Carl Sagan was doing Cosmos in 1980, I thought we would be on Mars in my life time. Now, I doubt it. I also question the benefits of going to other planets. It is rough enough finding hotels in American cities and dealing with foreign languages in other countries. At least, we can breathe on earth. We can't breathe on the moon or Mars. (Not to mention the temperature extremes).

The rover team has made a video explaining how Curiosity's landing is supposed to work - and boy, is it complicated! The video's called "Curiosity's 7 Minutes of Terror," but its pretty obvious the nailbiting is going to happen on Earth. From the entry into the Martian atmosphere to the surface of the planet takes seven minutes. But because Mars is so far away, it takes 14 minutes for a radio signal to get to Earth. So when they first get the signal that says she's begun the entry, she'll have already been on Mars for seven minutes - one way or another. Curiosity - 7 minutes to land

Less than two weeks now before Curiosity is due to land on Mars.

There's a new video out reminding us about her mission, which isn't an astrobiology one, i.e., looking for life on Mars. It's more subtle than that; the rover has been outfitted to do geochemistry, i.e., studying the chemistry of likely rock formations. That will provide information about whether the conditions once existed for simple life.

Curiosity isn't going to search for life on Mars

Curiosity is now in place for the planned descent on August 5/6. And the orbiter Mars Odyssey has had its orbit slightly adjusted so that it can transmit Curiosity's signals as the descent takes place.

Getcurious.com has a countdown clock for the landing at Curiosity's countdown.

Universe Today will be running a live feed on the landing, starting at 8pm PDT on Sunday August 5th (early Monday morning in Europe). If you have Google +, have a look at Google + Hangout Curiosity landing coverage It will also be run on Universe Today's You Tube channel .

Yay! Safe landing! Let the exploration commence . . . .

Yes, it is wonderful news, with the roving vehicle as big as a VW bug - yay!