Have you ever seen Mars? Well, the Curiosity rover has. This rover has been programed by the NASA space engineers to undertake the discovery of Mars, the red planet.
What is Curiosity?
Curiosity is a robot that was made to see if Mars is “habitable”. It is larger and can travel farther that Spirit and Opportunity, NASA’s two other rovers that began exploring the red planet in 2004. The rover’s onboard lab will study rocks to find the geological building blocks (e.g., forms of carbon) on Mars. It will look at what the environment was like in the past, asking the question, “Was Mars ever a habitat for microbial life?”
How does it work?
NASA added in lots of programming and tools into Curiosity. This rover has a gigantic arm used to scoop up things like soil. It also has a laser that can turn rock to dust so it can put it in the lab onboard. It can even take selfies by taking a series of pictures and combining them!
How did it get there?
The NASA engineers had to do some origami. They folded up Curiosity and loaded it into a rocket and the rocket launched up to Mars on November 2011. It took a very long time and got close on August 2012! When that happened, it dropped Curiosity. Using jet engines, it slowed down considerably and then gently unfolded on the surface of Mars. Since Mars has an atmosphere and could heat up and burn Curiosity, it had to use a heat shield, “Medlie”, to protect itself. The rover finally landed in the Gale crater, which is exactly where NASA wanted it to go. And then, using the in-built tools and Plutonium to power it up, it started its long journey of discovery and exploration on Mars.
