Welcome To Mars!
By: Jeremy Brown
Updated: August 7, 2012
The most difficult and elaborate mission to Mars ever attempted is now a huge success.
After a harrowing eight month journey through space and a nail-biter of a landing, the NASA rover Curiosity is already hard at work sending back snapshots.
A team of sleep-deprived, nerve-wracked scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory celebrated last night when Curiosity sent the message it had gotten there safely.
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An image taken from the mars Reconnaissance orbiter shows Curiosity's parachute as it deployed during landing.
A million things could have gone wrong during its descent, burning up $2.5 billion and eight years of painstaking labor in a split second, but the "seven minutes of terror" that scientists called the landing process was carried out perfectly by the rover, putting it right where it needs to be: In the middle of a crater which holds billions of years worth of geological history.
With the toughest part of its job done with, Curiosity will begin its real mission: Seeing if the red planet has the potential for hosting life.
Curiosity has a life expectancy of two Earth years, but could last a lot longer than that, like its predecessor Opportunity, which has been going strong since 2004.
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