Monday, August 6, 2012

Come Here, Rover

Yesterday, a Mars Curiosity rover landed safely on Mars. Everybody who participated in making sure that the rover landed safely was overjoyed; some even were crying.  I watched it at 1:30 AM with my father, it was live at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/index.html.

Do you know what a rover is? It kind of looks like WALLE, if you wanted me to describe one. It takes pictures in space and sends them back to earth, were scientists can study them and make important discoveries.

After the rover landed, it sent back pictures(small thumbnails). The first one was blurry, the second one was almost the same, and the rest were clear. This was the first image that the rover sent from MARS!

CLICK HERE to see the picture itself!

Did you know that a message sent from earth to Mars would take seven minutes to reach it? The same if a message was sent from Mars. It would take seven minutes to reach us.

If you want to see the suspense of the landing yourself, CLICK HERE to watch the video on their site.

Did you know that some of the stars in the sky you see do not exist anymore? They could have vanished years ago, but we still see them! This is because they were emitting light toward us. The light has not reached earth yet.



Actually, Xbox Live Arcade has a game called Mars Rover Landing that NASA has released. (It's free). Basically, you land the rover with your body and win little awards. I'd like to try it on my Xbox.



Want to learn more about this? Go to these links!

More about the rover: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/nasa-mission-to-mars-rover-curiosity-touches-down/2012/08/06/e10e7bf2-df89-11e1-8fc5-a7dcf1fc161d_story.html

Watch their streaming videos: http://www.ustream.tv/nasahdtv

Disclaimer: I'm just providing links. I do not own any pictures.

No comments:

Post a Comment