Curiosity Lands on Mars TONIGHT!!
By Erica Campbell on August 5, 2012, 4:36pm
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Tonight, at approximately 1:30am EST, the Mars Rover Curiosity will land on the Red Planet after an eight month journey through space. NASA has a lot riding on this $2.5 billion mission, especially since the ending of the space shuttle program.
Beginning back in the 1970’s, with the Viking missions, NASA and the world has long wondered whether or not there is life in outer space, other than what is on Earth. They have also wondered what lies beyond the reaches of our universe. The Mars rover Curiosity is the space agency's first astrobiology mission since the Viking probes. Its primary goal is to search for evidence that Mars, the planet most similar to Earth, may have once had the necessary ingredients for microscopic life to have formed.
Curiosity is a truly a mobile science lab. It has instruments on board to analyze the soil, rocks and atmosphere of Mars. It will also be recording the weather on the Red Planet (named the Red Planet because the iron ore in the soil gives it a reddish glow). The photos and results of any analysis the rover takes will be sent directly back to NASA scientists. There is an approximately 14 minute delay between the time the rover sends its data, to the time the scientists receive the messages, since the messages are traveling over 350 million miles.
NASA scientists predict the weather on Mars, at the time of the landing (which will occur during the Martian late afternoon), will be a hazy, pink sky (because of ice clouds) and temperatures will be around 10 degrees Fahrenheit. When the landing occurs, NASA mission specialists will hope that all of the landing gear, including a giant parachute and a jet-powered "sky crane,” will work correctly. Because of the time delay, scientists will not know if the landing was successful until 14 minutes later. If no communication is made, it may take hours or days for scientists to determine if only communication devises were lost or if the rover itself crashed and burned upon entering the Martian atmosphere.
NASA will be televising the landing live in Times Square tonight, starting at approximately 11:00pm. Many other websites and television stations will also be televising the landing live.
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