Sunday, September 2, 2012

Curiosity scans its first Martian rock!! Yay!!

Hello fellow geology enthusiasts! So I was browsing around the NASA website trying to find stuff on the Mars missions, when I came across the Curiosity rovers accomplishments. Well, I am one of those hopeful people that think we should plan out full on missions to sectors near our planet to find Goldilocks planets and ect., but money is an issue with discovery so I'll just have to settle for this: Apparently while on it's way up to Mt. Sharp on Mars, it encountered it's first Martian rock (creatively named N165) to scan with it's chemistry scanner, called ChemCam. This camera will be shooting lasers at the rock and will be sending information about the types of properties N165 has: it will react to the ionized gas that surrounds the rock and it will send this through a telescope to try to find out what elements it has. Just imagine, finding out if Mars once was a prime place for organic life, or that it's earth and minerals might be like those on Earth, or something we've never encountered before!! Here's the URL so you guys can check out the pictures Curiosity has sent and be excited with me!! http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/multimedia/pia16073.html

3 comments:

  1. This is very interesting. I feel the same way you do. It would be great if life on Mars could be discovered. Economically, it is an obstacle as of now but hopefully one day we will have our curiosity resolved.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you Zyanya, for commenting and relating to finding life and new discoveries on other planets!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You are welcome, I am sure others are interested as well.

      Delete