What Is The Curiosity Rover?

QUICK ANSWER

Curiosity is a car-sized NASA Mars rover that landed in Gale Crater on August 5, 2012. Part of the Mars Science Laboratory mission, Curiosity confirmed that Mars once had habitable conditions billions of years ago. It uses a nuclear power source and is still operating in 2026, over 14 years after landing.

Curiosity was a major leap forward in Mars exploration when it landed in 2012. At the time, it was the largest and most capable rover ever sent to another planet, vastly more sophisticated than its predecessors. Curiosity's mission was to answer whether Mars ever had conditions suitable for life, and early in its mission it answered with a definitive yes. The rover continues operating today, exploring the slopes of Mount Sharp.

What is the Curiosity rover?

NASA's car-sized Mars Science Laboratory rover. According to NASA, Curiosity was the largest and most capable rover ever sent to Mars at the time of its 2011 launch. The rover set out to answer the question: Did Mars ever have the right environmental conditions to support small life forms called microbes? Curiosity is about 10 feet long, 9 feet wide, and weighs about 2,000 pounds, roughly the size of a small SUV. It's powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG), which uses heat from decaying plutonium to generate electricity.

How did it land?

With the dramatic Seven Minutes of Terror. Curiosity landed in Gale Crater on August 5, 2012, in one of the most complex robotic landings ever attempted. The spacecraft used a heat shield, parachute, and then a unique sky crane system to lower the rover by cables from a rocket-powered platform. The entire landing took about seven minutes and was completely automated; signals from Mars took 14 minutes to reach Earth, so by the time NASA knew landing had started, it was already complete.

What has it discovered?

That Mars was once habitable. Early in its mission, Curiosity found chemical and mineral evidence of past habitable environments on Mars. The rover confirmed that Gale Crater once contained a long-lasting lake with the right conditions to support microbial life, with neutral pH, low salinity, and the chemical elements needed for biology. Curiosity has also detected complex organic molecules, seasonal methane fluctuations in the Martian atmosphere (still unexplained), and changing climate patterns recorded in the rock layers it's been climbing.

Where is it now?

Climbing Mount Sharp. Gale Crater contains a 3-mile-tall central peak called Mount Sharp (officially Aeolis Mons), which Curiosity has been climbing since 2014. Each rock layer represents a different period in Martian history, like reading a geological book from bottom to top. Curiosity continues to send back data over a decade after landing. The rover has drilled over 30 holes for sample analysis and traveled over 20 miles. It's likely to remain operational for several more years as its nuclear power source decays.

Curiosity is a car-sized NASA Mars rover that landed in Gale Crater on August 5, 2012, using the dramatic sky crane system. Part of the Mars Science Laboratory mission, Curiosity confirmed that Mars once had habitable conditions billions of years ago. The rover is nuclear-powered and still operating in 2026, over 14 years later. It continues climbing Mount Sharp, reading Mars's geological history layer by layer.

What Is The Curiosity Rover?