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NASA’S CURIOSITY ROVER is preparing to begin its first drive on the surface of Mars since landing on the Red Planet on 6 August.
Researchers back on Earth said they had a lot of difficulty in choosing a route for Curiosity’s road trip given the options presented by the rover’s landing position.
“We had a bunch of strong contenders,” Curiosity principal investigator John Grotzinger of the California Institute of Technology during a press conference. “It is the kind of dilemma planetary scientists dream of, but you can only go one place for the first drilling for a rock sample on Mars.”
“That first drilling will be a huge moment in the history of Mars exploration.”
The team has decided that the rover will travel about 400 metres south-east of its landing site to a location called ‘Glenelg’. The spot has been identified as an interesting drilling site as three types of terrain intersect there. The plan is for the rover to later make its way towards Mount Sharp.
Image showing Curiosity’s landing location and the destinations scientists want it to investigate during its two-year mission on Mars, starting with Glenelg. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona)
Curiosity hasn’t moved since it landed on Mars earlier this month but researchers are planning to test its mobility this week by moving it forward and backwards briefly before it sets off on its first proper run.
In preparation for its first drive on Mars, the rover will be testing its “rock-zapping” laser tonight. The powerful ChemCham device can be used to help analyse the chemical composition of rocks by vaporising the rock surface.
“We are going to hit it with 14 millijoules of energy 30 times in 10 seconds,” said ChemCam principal investigator Roger Wiens.
“It is not only going to be an excellent test of our system, it should be pretty cool too.”
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Great thing that the human race has done never stop searching for answers
although we never stopped there was a time when our fellow man crushed progress and our will to search for new ideas……the religious dark ages.
imagine what our world would have been like without the dark ages…..
Without the ‘Dark Ages’ – or the Early Middle Ages as those times are properly known – we would in fact be much further back in our progress than where we are now. The Dark Ages as a term, and the malignment of the Christian Church’s role in those times, is the result of the elitist propaganda of the much later european Enlightenment.
As a matter of fact, that period saw the founding of the first european universities, the arrival of algebra, the extension and extensive codification of Roman Law, the principal of trial by peers, the Caroligian Renaissance, the Byzantine Golden Age, and the foundation of Scientific principals – all while, it may be added, the continent was united by a single faith and church which did not stifle natural sciences as is now commonly believed.
The impact of Islam, and the sharing of knowledge between the Christian and Islamic cultures, was also a huge element to the intellectual boom of the time, a boom which lasted until the Crusades (about a hundred years).
lest we forget much later on, gallileo being forced by the church to recant his theory of the earth not being flat and having to live the rest of his life under house arrest…call me anti church but i reckon such incidences(among many others)did indeed stifle mans quest for scientific discovery..
The day we stop exploring is the day we commit ourselves to live in a stagnant world, devoid of curiosity & empty of dreams. — Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson)
BTW- Millions more would be starving if it wasn’t for the dreamers who sought to go where no persons had gone before. Without the technological advancements developed by those same dreamers, the world would be a poorer place.
what explorers invented something??
I just don’t understand why people knock such amazing achievements. It’s because of the technological spin offs from the space programmes and projects like the LHC that you hold a mobile device in your hand. Climate modelling, advances in drug research, the human genome project…. We need high end science, its what makes the dreams of today the ordinary of tomorrow.
cos they are silly :) simples lol
this is amazing achievement by NASA. pretty sure they will find traces of water. Life on the other hand i dont think so as Mars had a core that cooled too fast not generating a magnetic field, would be hard for anything to live with that radiation. But if we dont explore we will never know for sure :)
I must disagree with you Stewie, have a look at the current series about the universe presented by professor Brian Cox. It is widely believed that Mars had a viable atmosphere at one stage. You are right on one thing though, Mars did have a hotter core :-)
there is a huge difference between the lhc and the money used here would be much better service to the people if it was used to build nuclear reactors or give out free led lights
actually Ian your dead right. I’m looking forward to seeing what the rover tells us
Great thing the human race has done spending billions on futile space exploration whilst millions starve to death daily…..
Philistine!
If millions starve to death daily then about, what, 3.5 billion starve to death yearly? Your maths are very poor. Which isn’t a surprise.
Millions are spent on Coke, McDonalds, Freeky Chicken, The Sun newspaper, Mars bars, Sky TV, socks, hand bags, fags, lotto tickets etc etc etc daily. Better we explore the Universe. It’s our destiny.
What should we do dave not try get answers. The reason people starve is because there are to many people on this earth. Not because they spent a few million on a trip to mars
@ William If 365 times a million is 3.5 billion I need to go back to school.
@ William , my point was not my Maths , my point was prioritising and may I ask how was it so obvious to you that my maths is not o your standard?
Billions of dollars is a lot of money when you think about the price of a litre of milk. But compared to the national debt of the USA (or even a small country like Ireland), or to the money U2 charge for concert tickets worldwide, or Sky TV pay to televise football, or Hollywood spend to make one movie etc etc etc, it is not too bad. The money spent on going to Mars is massive, but if it didn’t go to NASA it would go to developing weapons of war for the American Army.
So, let’s spend that money on exploration, because deep down we are all curious about what is around the corner…..
… and I’m itching to hear what the Jesus freaks have to say if and when they find life elsewhere
@mick k, what u2 charge for tickets, wat a stupid comment…
Amazing, Dave, you have a rant on a website which is on the internet which was developed by spending vast sums of money. Without this medium your rant would have went unnoticed. How ironic?
they should be spending there money on nuclear reactors not missions to mars, idiots.
@ian , what a completely stupid comparison… The Internet was founded at very little cost and has proved its worth , please think before you write…… Don’t be just another plonked who thinks using the word ” irony ” makes you somewhat intelligent, your comment ironically makes you moronic.
your right you know, spending money on science is wrong!
there was this time when people wasted loads of time and money messing about with bits of glass so they could see these tiny invisible creatures moving around.
they claimed these creature’s were called bacteria and that they could make you sick but nobody else could see them only the people that used these “toys” called microscopes
clearly these microscopes are the work of the devil!!
why would anyone waste money looking at creatures that don’t exist!, surely thats no benefit to anyone!!!!
@ Dave. I understand where you are coming from and highlighting world hunger is to be commended, 2 billion (Once off) is certainly a lot of money to spend. But then so is 27 Billion (Once in 4 years) for the Olympics and 742 Billion (Annually) for the production of global armaments. Of the three: one may give us huge advances in science, one gives millions huge joy and the latter gives pain death and suffering to billions every year. Like I said you have the right idea I just think you might have the wrong target.
@ Glyn , well mate at least you did not berate me for my math and yes your right of course but even though billions on Olympics make be seen as extreme at least local business etc etc gets something out of it, send a buggy to Mars is ( in my view) a larger scale of play station , for people to play with at the expense of the tax payer, tho I will apologies publicly if anything remotely useful is found. Oh and not a piece of ” red mars rock” that one on the cosy banking cartel can afford to buy.
The space programme over the years has lead to huge advances in computing, engineering and other scientific areas that are now commonplace in our everyday lives and which we take advantage of on a daily basis. If you want to bitch about something how about bitching about the billions that are spent daily of armies, navies, air forces and weapons of war which don’t bring about any progress but the very opposite.
The other point that is never mentioned is about government responsibility in most of the countries that suffer starvation, famine and malnutrition. Most African governments are corrupt beyond measure. If those government actually worked in the interests of their people we could do a lot to alleviate poverty in their respective countries.
I could imagine you back in 1492 writing angry pamplets complaining about the vast amount of money being spend on that Columbus going to find the Indies!
some amount of backward closed minded people commenting here. if it wasn’t for exploration or the desire to explore, we’d still be living in caves, although i don’t expect those people to make the connection there.
Shane Im no science or space expert but I always used to think what it would have been like being in my teens when they put a man on the moon. I have taken some interest in watching curiousity & to be fair Shane its truely inspiring the engineering & the solutions they had to come up with. These are our moon landings & another way to describe it is education. Education is mans greastest experience.
One great thing here is nobody has mentioned bankers or bondholders…… Ups ….. Oh no …. Sorry:(
Billions of dollars spent sending a robot to the desert in Nevada !!!
Not really getting it.
Daithi…..too much star trek talk going on there.
Seriously michael, who sends postcards nowadays anyway!
Does he work for the post office ?
Honestly thinking about it, you are correct and right. As soon as they bring back some rock from mars, our world will be a better place.
why bring it back?? i know you were being sarcastic but shows that you really have no clue. Curiosity is a lab no need to bring anything back
So when does the wizard curiously return?
He doesn’t.
Some wizard that is.
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