Curious About Curiosity

I'm sure you have all heard about the Mars Science Laboratory better known as the Curiosity Rover. Perhaps you even remember Spirit and Opportunity and the time when they headed to Mars and changed the history of space exploration. I remember how when I was a little girl my dad and I would play a game on the NASA website with the Spirit and Opportunity rovers.  In the game we would put the materials needed for the mission onto the rovers and then launch them to Mars. The game was really fun for me because I was able to think about going to another planet and exploring it. Who wouldn't think that was cool?!


That's why I was so excited to hear about the Curiosity rover earlier this year. After all these years of innovation and creativity the Curiosity rover can do things that would never have been dreamed of back when space exploration first began. Now we can delve deeper into the past life of Mars and maybe find evidence of life.

Curiosity made a big mark on the history of space exploration just by landing. The landing of the Curiosity rover was so unique because it was a technique that had never been tried before. The previous ways of landing that had been used on Spirit and Opportunity wouldn't work for Curiosity because the weight of the rovers was so different.

Scientists had to brainstorm a new way to land. They came up with a thing called a sky crane. The sky crane is essentially a parachute and thrusters. The trick to it was that there was no way to test this landing process for real before the actual thing. In order for it to work the parachute had to deploy perfectly to position the rover EXACTLY perpendicular to Mars' surface. Then the thrusters had to come on and land the rover gently.

MSL Landing
Photo Courtesy of NASA.gov

The most recent accomplishment was when Curiosity completed the first ever deep analysis of a soil sample on Mars. The way the rover is designed a "hand" can pick up a soil sample and insert it into the belly of the rover. There the sample undergoes various tests including analysis of the chemistry of the sample and looking at the mass spectrometry of the sample.

 Five spots where Curiosity has scooped soil from
Photo Courtesy of NASA.gov

Curiosity is quite literally a high tech science lab on wheels that can do so much in the search for evidence of past life on Mars. What the rover may find about the composition of Mars will dramatically effect what the Earth's future looks like. If something resembling life was found....it would be game changing. I don't want to act like I know how something that amazing would change our future but the change would be BIG! I am confident that Curiosity will find lots of information that will change the way we view the universe and I'm so excited for the future it holds.