Marking One Year on Mars (Unless You Live in California)

Despite the fact that Curiosity touched down on Mars around 10 PM, Pacific Daylight Time on August 5, 2012, NASA and everyone else is marking today as the one-year anniversary since the rover reached the Red Planet. Curiosity was 'born' at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (whose historic Space Flight Operations Facility monitored the spacecraft's landing) near Pasadena, California...so one would think that the one-year milestone of the rover's arrival would officially be based on what time it was on the West Coast at that moment. Oh well. We should all just be grateful that this one-ton, nuclear-powered beauty is alive and well on the Martian surface.

Check out this cool photo of the Martian moons Phobos and Deimos that Curiosity recently took from her nesting ground at Gale Crater.


NASA / JPL