CURIOSITY

Curiosity is the name of the vehicle which has landed in Mars recently.  The above picture shows the vehicle which looks like a dune buggy.  It is not a toy or desert scooter it is a specialised space craft sent by NASA to the Mars and has successfully landed there.  See the video below and the sigh of relief and happiness in the faces of people working in the Laboratory in NASA:



Curiosity is one of the traits of human beings which helps in growth.  As a child we are curious to see what the other child is doing.  As a grown up boy in school we are curious to see what our classmates are doing.  As a grown up man or woman we are curious to see what our neighbours are doing.  As a business man we are curious to see what our competitors are doing in the market.  As human beings living in Planet Earth we are now curious to see what can be done in the nearby planet "Mars".  "Wow" this seems to be the height of curiosity.  The spacecraft is rightly named and let us hope with the images and pictures that are being beamed from Mars we are able to discover something new.

There will be new discoveries about Mars on a daily basis.  Curiosity is equipped with 17 cameras and is controlled by a computer. It took 8 months for the journey to reach Mars.  Following Curiosity's descent, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter HiRISE camera snapped what NASA scientists have called the "crime scene photo", an image showing Curiosity and the final resting place of its parachute and back shell, sky crane and heat shield.

Curiosity sends data, including images, back to Earth through its multiple antennas via the two Mars orbiters, Reconnaissance and Odyssey. It can also send messages directly to Earth. At the moment data relay rates remain low, but the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has the capacity to relay data at up to 2 megabits per second.  On Tuesday the rover transmitted its first colour image from its Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), also showing part of the north rim of Gale Crater.

Curiosity is in what engineers call its commissioning phase, a time where all of its systems and instruments are checked out. The real scientific work — determining whether Mars was habitable — begins in a few weeks, and the $2.5 billion mission is expected to continue for at least two years.

All the best to Curiosity and the Team at NASA.  Whilst they are busy curious to find out more about Mars let us explore the unexplored areas and avenues within this Planet Earth and let us continue with our Curiosity to know what is happening around us.

T.P.Anand
Dubai, U.A.E.
9th August 2012.