Thursday, April 21, 2011

A photo of the Curiosity Mars rover, taken on April 4, 2011, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory near Pasadena, CA.
NASA / JPL - Caltech

VIDEO OF THE DAY... Check out this awesome animated clip below that depicts events ranging from the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft departing Earth (after launching from Florida sometime this November) to it deploying the Curiosity rover onto the Martian surface more than 8 months later (in August 2012). Cool video... The only gripe to make about it is that there is no sound in space. You’ll have to watch the video to know what I’m talking about.




The Mars Science Laboratory’s components are scheduled to be shipped to Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory near Pasadena, California, in May and June...to begin launch preparations. Hopefully, it will be Curiosity itself that arrives at the Cape in June—seeing as how I would like to see it one last time in person at the JPL Open House next month. On a final note, click here to see some very amusing Photoshop work done on the image below...which shows Curiosity’s "head" (containing the 'Mastcam' and other imaging devices that the rover will use to help it navigate on the surface on Mars). Funny stuff. Carry on.

A close-up of Curiosity's head...which contains the Mastcam and other imaging devices used to help the rover navigate on the surface of Mars.
Emily Lakdawalla / The Planetary Society

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