A one-ton remote controlled off-road vehicle that was sent up to Mars, it doesn’t get much cooler than the Mars Curiosity Rover
The red planet has long been a curiosity that has featured heavily in our culture despite being one of the smallest planets in our solar system.
We’ve been more or less obsessed with the thought that there is intelligent life out there somewhere, and the term Martians has been around since the early 20th century, when the idea first exploded that there was once a race of aliens living on the planet.
In order to disprove that, and also learn some stuff about science (apparently), NASA have put together the hugely impressive Curiosity Rover project, which landed on Mars in August of 2012, to some pretty jubilant scenes at NASA.
The Curiosity Rover has already made some incredible discoveries, including the fact that Mars was indeed capable of sustaining life when the planet had a warmer and wetter climate, years ago, and has also found an area where water would have flowed for thousands of years.
All of this essentially means that at some stage, Mars was a much more hospitable place for different forms of life, and that, eventually, we could be looking at a manned exploration mission to the planet. Also it gets cool pictures on the surface of Mars, like this:
From today, the Mars Rover will be working on its own for the first time because the Sun has gotten in the way of the signals being sent to it, but it’s not going to be lying idle while that’s happening, it’s still getting through the work and checking out what’s happening on the surface of Mars, as it goes in search of more signs of life.
There is also a second mission planned for 2020, based on the success of the Curiosity rover and all its discoveries. You can even keep up with the Rover via Twitter as it explores the planet, and get all the news first hand.
If you want to head into space like the Mars Curiosity Rover, all you have to do head over to lynxpollo.com, get yourself signed up and see if you’ve got what it takes to head into space.
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