Applause erupts across the campus of the Jet Propulsion laboratory. The rover will seek answer to age old questions about whether life ever existed on Mars. If the planet can sustain life in the future? The most modern spacecraft successfully landed on Mars. The 2.5 billion dollar robotic “Curiosity” had a spectacular landing near the foot of a mountain.
It was America’s most high tech interplanetary rover. Within minutes of its landing it beamed back its first black and white thumb nail image of Mars. Then the bigger image of Mars received. It is expected to revolutionise the understandings of Mars, gathering evidence that Mars is or was capable of fostering life, probably in microbial form. It will bring Martian rock or soil back to Earth for detailed analysis.
The probe which has seventeen cameras and a drift fitted on a robotic arm, landed on Gale crater, formed four billions ago. Curiosity will search for other building blocks of life, particularly carbon carrying organic molecules. There will be tests to determine whether Mars may have supported life will spend the next ninety Martian days around ninety two Earth days. Its laser camera combination will take readings of the zapped gases released after he laser hits the Martian soil samples.
The primary mission is expected to last at least one Martian year, or six hundred eighty seven Earth days. The powerful laser will vaporize the samples with over a million watts of energy. The telescopes and spectrometer alongside will analyze the light emitted by materials, determining the chemistry of rocks. It carries nuclear batteries as heat source which is used to produce the on-board electricity needed to move the rover and keep the frigid night time cold at bay.
Over the years the first Mars probe, Marsnik in nineteen hundred sixty from the erstwhile Soviet Union, did not make it to the Red Planet .Spirits and Opportunity rovers were launched in two thousand three and lasted well beyond their nominal mission for ninety days.
