| Story Views | |
| Now: | |
| Last Hour: | |
| Last 24 Hours: | |
| Total: | |
Long Live American Curiosity – Now We Start Exploring Mars
Image Caption: 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. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“Welcome to Mars,” said Charles Elachi, Director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., following the dramatic and successful touchdown of Curiosity on the Red Planet at 1:32 AM EDT Aug. 6 (10:32 PM Aug 5). “Tonight was a great drama. We did the landing. Tomorrow we start exploring Mars and make new discoveries every day. Our Curiosity has no limits and we will explore the solar system.”
Tumultuous and long lasting jubilation erupted at Mission Control at JPL when the successful landing was announced and during the post landing news briefing at JPL.
NASA’s Curiosity Mars Science Lab (MSL) safely survived the harrowing plunge and nail biting descent through the Martian atmosphere known as the “7 minutes of Terror”. She landed near the foot of a layered mountain three miles (5 km) tall and 96 miles(154 km) in diameter inside Gale Crater. She relayed a few initial thumbnail pictures within minutes after touchdown via NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter. (…)
Read the rest of Long Live American Curiosity – Now We Start Exploring Mars (610 words)
© Ken Kremer for Universe Today, 2012. | Permalink | 6 comments |
Post tags: Curiosity, Curiosity Rover, Mars, Mars Rovers, Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), MSL, NASA
Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh
2012-08-06 05:59:22
Source: http://www.universetoday.com/96629/long-live-american-curiosity-now-we-start-exploring-mars/
Source:
