NASA to broadcast Curiosity’s 1st anniversary celebration on August 6th 10:45 ET

DNP Curiosity anniv broadcast

It’s hard to believe August 5th marks Curiosity’s first year on Mars — it seems like only yesterday that we were on tenterhooks during the rover’s precarious landing on the red planet. Within that time, it hasn’t only fulfilled its initial mission of finding evidence of extraterrestrial water, but it has also discovered traces of carbon-based materials and captured an astounding number of Mars close-ups. To celebrate everything Curiosity’s done thus far, NASA JPL will broadcast its first anniversary event via Ustream on August 6th, 10:45AM EDT.

The program kicks off with a series of pre-recorded interviews with the mission’s team, but a live stream with NASA officials and the crew aboard the ISS will follow. Folks itching to pick their brains can ask them questions in advance via Curiosity’s Twitter or Google+ accounts, or during the event by using the #askNASA hashtag. Even if you’re not a fan of the rover, you might still want to tune in — NASA will also be chatting about its preparations for the first human mission to Mars and to an asteroid.

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Source: NASA (Twitter), (Ustream), Space

Curiosity’s Greatest Hits in Its One Year on Mars

Curiosity's Greatest Hits in Its One Year on Mars

Can you believe it’s been a full year since the Mars Curiosity rover made its absolutely spectacular red, dusty landing? Millions watched with bated breath the day that NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory began its historical journey. It may have taken everyone’s favorite interplanetary robot a little while to get up and running, but once it did, the discoveries kept on coming. Here’s a look back at some the more fun, mind-blowing, and all around spectacular of Curiosity’s finds in honor of its first martian anniversary.

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Mars Would Be a Hipster Paradise If Rovers Were Into Instagram

Mars Would Be a Hipster Paradise If Rovers Were Into Instagram

Just after Mars rover Curiosity touched down, it sent home a selfie worthy of Instagram. But what if it was actually using Instagram? Nikos Kantarakias figured he might as well find out what that’d look like.

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Curiosity’s First Year on Mars In a Whirlwind Two Minute Timelapse

It’s hard to believe it, but Curiosity has been out there roving the Red Planet for almost a year already. And like any good space vehicle, it has been meticulously documenting its every step(?). That’s a lot of documentation, so here’s the quick version: 12 months in two minutes. Ready? Go.

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Curiosity’s Just Another Pale Blue Dot in This Hi-Def Photo From Mars

Curiosity's Just Another Pale Blue Dot in This Hi-Def Photo From Mars

Looks like we’re not the only pale blue dot in the solar system. A newly released image from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows us that from way up high, our Curiosity rover is nothing more than a lonely, itty bitty blue speck amidst a sea of red.

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NASA Curiosity Mars rover records timelapse of Phobos moon rising

We’ve seen a lot of neat photos from Mars thanks to NASA’s latest Curiosity rover that’s currently putzing its way around the surface of the red planet. The latest imagery that it has sent back is a rather simple, but neat timelapse video of one of Mars’ moons rising into the Martian sky.

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The video is simply a timelapse consisting of 86 photos that were taken by Curiosity’s navigation camera, and they were stitched together to create a 30-second timelapse. The set of photos were taken shortly after Mars’ sunset on June 28. The timelapse video shows the moon rising over the course of about 30 minutes.

In the video, you’ll notice how small Phobos appears in the sky, and that’s mostly because it’s just 14 miles in diameter (compared to Earth’s Moon, which is over 2,100 miles in diameter). If you’re wondering about the mysterious ring glow in the video, officials say it’s is an artifact caused by the scattering of light inside the camera.

It’s not much to look at, really, since it just looks like another star in the sky, but it’s definitely unique to witness a moon rising on another planet in our solar system. The photos were taken from Gale Crater, which Curiosity arrived to back in August. The rover is expected to be active for at least another year.

Curiosity has yet to leave Gale Crater, but NASA plans to take it elsewhere in the future. It’s ultimate destination is the base of the mysterious Mount Sharp, which stands at 3.4 miles high. It’s no Mount Everest, but NASA thinks Mount Sharp holds some secrets that the rover could uncover about possible life on Mars.

VIA: Space.com


NASA Curiosity Mars rover records timelapse of Phobos moon rising is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
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NASA Curiosity takes massive 1.3 billion pixel Mars panorama

NASA‘s Curiosity rover has sent more than a few pictures of the Red Planet back to its Earth-bound audience, a great deal of which have been made freely available for the public to view on the space agency’s website. The latest image to be made public, however, stands out from the rest due to its

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Curiosity Rover Beams Billion Pixel Panoramic Mars Shots

The Curiosity Rover on Mars has beamed back billion pixel shots of the Red Planet’s landscape.

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NASA makes billion-pixel Mars panorama out of photos captured by Curiosity

DNP Billionpixel Mars photo by Curiosity

Sure, they’re mostly just pictures of sand and rocks, but we still have to thank the Curiosity rover for beaming back images of landscapes we’ll never walk on. To give you a panoramic view of a Mars area called “Rocknest” with Mount Sharp visible on the horizon, NASA stitched together almost 900 exposure shots into a single 1.3-billion-pixel image. The photos were taken over the course of more than a month (from October 5th to November 16th last year) at different times of the day, so you can observe variations in illumination and thickness of dust in the atmosphere throughout the panorama. Head over to the source to access the whole interactive mosaic replete with pan and zoom controls, and if you’re lucky, you might even see a rock the rover’s laser zapped in the past.

[Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS]

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Via: Wired

Source: NASA

Lego Mars Curiosity rover set official

It’s a great time for Lego: there’s going to be a movie based on the building bricks, and the company just announced its latest set. As a part of Lego’s Cuusoo project, fans are able to send in designs and ideas for future Lego sets, and the Mars Curiosity rover won this round, beating out

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