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It Came From Outer Space

First Picture From the Curiosity Rover and the Surface of Mars

by Susana Polo | 1:58 am, August 6th, 2012


Take a moment to see, in simulation, what just happened millions of miles away because of human ingenuity.

Here’s the Curiosity Rover, safe, sound, and transmitting data from the surface of Mars, photographing its own shadow:

Currently NASA websites are being battered by folks trying to join in the celebration. Tomorrow morning, we can rest assured, there will be even more from the Red Planet.

(via @MarsCuriosity.)

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  • Anonymous

    What are we hoping to accomplish? I can appreciate exploration, and my desire to live on another planet is thrilled that we are one step closer, but what is the goal here? I wander if it is more wasted resources.

  • http://www.facebook.com/Travis.K.Fischer Travis Kyle Fischer

    Curiosity is heading for a massive crater to investigate whether or not it was once a lake. In the middle of the crater is a mountain that basically serves as a historical record of the planet.

    They’ll also try to figure out how the hell a mountain was formed on a planet with no plate tectonics.

    Ultimately though, Curiosity is searching for evidence of organic material and water, to figure out if life ever existed on Mars.

    Also, McDonald’s advertising budget for Happy Meals is larger than NASA’s entire budget. Of the two, only one invented Velcro.

  • Anonymous

    If they discover that life did exist there, then what? The more interesting aspect to me is the formation of a mountain under the circumstances. Seeing as it goes against what we believe we know about planets, it could be valuable information; I imagine it could also be useless knowledge but I don’t want to play the cynic anymore than I already am.

    One thing to note about McDonald’s is that they will not send you to prison if you don’t buy Happy Meals.

  • Anonymous

     This. If I could, I’d click “liked” ten times.

    Also, I don’t see how finding out more about our solar system can be considered “a waste of resources”. Actually, I don’t understand saying this about almost any endeavour that’s about learning something. The point is – it’s worth it to know more, even if you don’t get immediate practical applications. Sometimes we figure those out later, and sometimes it’s just a step to some other discovery. And sometimes we can just say “now we understand”, and that’s fantastic too. Science is not just about what we, regular people living right now, can get from it.

  • Anonymous

    How is any of this knowledge useless? Explain. Knowledge…being useless. Isn’t the saying “Knowledge is power”?

  • Anonymous

    The saying doesn’t account for cost. The better wording on my end should have been wastefully gained instead of useless. Knowledge comes at a price. In this situation, the resources are forcefully acquired through the citizens. All of my previous posts have done well to ignore this aspect so that it doesn’t break down into an argument about the initiation of force.

    I am instead focusing on the cost versus gain aspect of all of this.

  • http://www.facebook.com/Travis.K.Fischer Travis Kyle Fischer

    Before you go any further… just step back and think about this. You are using an electronic computerized device, possibly a portable one, to question the potential benefits of the space program… on the Internet.

    Where exactly do you think that the technology that made all of this possible came from?

  • Anonymous

    @Travis Kyle Fischer

    I have no doubt that if the space program did not exist, we would still be advancing technologically. I really don’t see what it is that you are trying to convey. Where there is demand, someone will fill it.

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