Curiosity has landed!

Hopefully you all have heard that the newest rover sent to Mars by NASA has landed safe and sound.  This is an awesome moment and hopefully the start of a long and successful mission!  I for one am extremely excited to see what the rover can find.  The rover touched down in the Gale crater near the equator.

Now the rover will begin its examination of the martian soil looking for evidence of martian life in the past or even the present.  The rover was in development for about ten years before landing.  I sadly missed the live landing but I did watch the recording of the control room and watched the frame by frame on NASA TV.  It is good to see that some government funding is being spent for a good purpose.

Lets raise a glass to the people who made this mission possible and succeeded in landing the one ton rover right on target!

Curiosity Descent (YouTube)

Image of Curiosities descent
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona Taken by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter all credit to them


Image from Curiosities Twitter feed

I am just geeking out here right now about the landing of the Curiosity rover so I am going to share some of it with you here.

This video clip discusses the waiting time between the rover landing and the control room back on Earth knowing if the rover crashed or landed successfully.

Seven Minutes of Terror

Next up is some information on Gale crater and what we know about it right now.

Info on Gale Crater





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Construction Zone Safety and Common Sense

I currently work for the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, and I feel it is necessary to point out a safety tip or two for people who drive through construction zones.  I read earlier last week in the news that people travelling through the highway 65 project are moving or stealing the markers that are used to direct traffic at the work site.  I can not stress enough how incredibly dangerous and stupid that is.  The markers are there to improve safety on the job site and to direct traffic.  If something is moved it could cause injury or death.  If you see anybody doing this do as the article says and report them to the police. Also, a few weeks back I went up to Superior to do road survey.  My main job was to walk along the road and measure the lengths of the painted lines all up the highway.  There were several occasions where I was alongside the road with proper signage to broadcast my presence yet people would not change lanes and ended up driving two feet away from me at 7
Read more

Red v.s. Blue

I do not know how many of you are familiar or have seen machinima , which is essentially scripted movies/shows made in video games.  I would like to however to discuss one of my favorites a show called Red v.s. Blue.  The show takes place in the Halo universe, and was originally just a comedy, made as a weekly video game skit by Rooster Teeth .  First started when the original Halo came out (that makes me feel really old) the skit took place in the iconic map Blood Gulch.  The story involved some of the least intelligent and extremely hilarious soldiers who were posted in the canyon to protect their flags from the other team. The show was without to much of a plot line but it was funny, so many people watched it.  That was all the way back in 2003, and now 10 years later the show still lives and has a coherent plot line complete with some drama, secrets, and of course the humor that brought its success in the first place.  The 10th season of the show recently ended with season 11 due
Read more

DIY Banana Rum

Image
Welcome back to another wonderful Thursday!  This week I attempt to make banana rum for science (Okay...because I wanted to).  I found this recipe on  Serious Eats , recipe was straightforward and easy to perform.  I only strayed from the recipe in the initial infusion of banana flavor with one extra day of infusing  (I blame school for that one!)  I will let you click the link for the recipe seeing as it is their invention and I just want more people to see it. Workstation Now to the reflections section!  I found the recipe easy to prepare and make, I substituted regular white sugar into the recipe.  I did however have some minor issues with the straining section of the process.  The bananas were partially dissolved in the rum so I strained it many many times.  I substituted coffee filters for the cheese cloth as I already had some.  I ended up using three large plastic cups, two funnels, and a mesh strainer to remove all of the fruit in a timely (not really) manner. Ban
Read more