Curiosity lands in Area 51
openminds.tv
NASA’s latest Mars rover, Curiosity, has not begun roving the planet yet, but it is already providing scientists back on Earth with a wealth of information and awe-inspiring imagery. With data from Curiosity, and with images from the High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, scientists are mapping the Gale Crater region where Curiosity landed on August 5. And Curiosity’s landing site has been dubbed Quad 51—no relation to Area 51, according to NASA.
Curiosity's landing site. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona)
According to Florida Today, NASA has officially named the landing site Yellowknife, after the capital city of Northwest Territories, Canada, where geologists discovered Earth’s oldest rocks. A group of scientists responsible for mapping the area around the landing site “divided the area up into about one-mile by one-mile quads, or squares.” And Curiosity “happened to land in Quad 51.”
Although Florida Today speculates that “conspiracy theorists are going to go nuts when they discover NASA’s Curiosity rover landed in Area 51 inside Gale Crater,” Curiosity science chief John Grotzinger says assigning the same number to this particular quadrangle as the secretive military installation in Nevada “was completely by accident.”
2012-08-10 15:02:40
Source: http://www.openminds.tv/curiosity-lands-in-area-51-821/
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Conspiracy theorists. Hmm. Can anyone give me the slightest proof that this spoof has actually gone to Mars? Is there one thing that makes it a definite? The rest of the world is ALL about making the biggest return on investment; so why is this “mission” any different? These folks always like to insert the real truth subtly into their “press briefings”, and so far they’ve told us it’s in Area 51, and that one of the pictures looks as if it’s taken somewhere in SW USA. This is just reverse psychology, ie they get to say it before you do. Also someone commented that when the first picture was “sent back” he was sure there was a fly landed on the lens.
Ockham’s Razor says that the simplest explanation should always be assumed to be the truth unless you can rule it out.
Simplest solution; it’s made of Coke cans and Lego and an R/C unit from RadioShack.
Ker-Ching !