How can anyone NOT be excited about this? With all the possible things that could have gone wrong, especially during launch and descent, I really am amazed and proud that this thing landed safely. Congratulations to all involved!
May it continue to amaze for years to come...
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The 'deep crater' part worries me. Will Curiosity be able to climb out if need be? It would be a shame if this particular choice of landing site limited Curiosity's ability to explore elsewhere on the Martian surface.
There should be no need. In this image of the target area,
They say narrowing from the larger to the smaller ellipse shortened the time required to reach the mountain by several months. The current best estimate of actual landing site:
shows they did an incredibly good job of getting where they wanted. They expected it to take two years to reach the mountain; with this closer landing they may have been able to shorten that time to around one year. In any case look at the big picture; it would take many years of travel to reach anywhere near the rim of that crater. Surely they will find plenty of interesting places/things to investigate during the travels, which will make it take longer still.
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Re: Nasa Rover Touches Down on Mars
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