Model, Mars Science Laboratory, Mars Rover Curiosity

The Mars Science Laboratory, Curiosity, successfully landed on the red planet on August 6, 2012, after nearly a year traveling from Earth. At that time Curiosity began a multi-year mission to explore the Gale Crater and to climb Mt. Sharp in its center. Curiosity brought to the red planet’s surface a formidable life sciences laboratory that may well help resolve beyond serious question whether or not life ever existed on Mars. This rover is the first full-scale astrobiology mission to Mars since the Viking landers of 1976. Having followed the water, and found evidence of it, Curiosity now seeks to answer if Mars could have supported—or might still support—life. Mars Curiosity has ten different instruments designed to help find the answer to this question. It will look for processes that might have preserve clues about life, either now or in the past, on the red planet.