Red Rendezvous

Though space may be the final frontier, many of us may not know that another Mars mission is about to occur. The new Mars rover, Curiosity, is set to land on the red planet's surface at 1:31am August 6th. While this may not seem like a historical event, make no mistake about it is.

Curiosity follows in the footsteps of it's predecessors, Spirit, Opportunity, Sojourner, and Pathfinder, which first touched down on the Martian terrain in 1996. The rover got it's name form a sixth grader named Clara Ma, in 2009, as part of NASA's name the rover essay contest. Standing at 7 feet tall, it is the largest and most advance rover to date.

The vehicle, launched in November is a 2.5 billion dollar science laboratory, which if it survives it's 12,000mph plunge into Mars' atmosphere, will spend a full Martian year studying it's desolate environment. Curiosity is slated to land inside of Gale Crater and climb Mt Sharp on a "follow the carbon," trail. During the course of the mission, the rover will be using drills and lasers to bore into Martian rocks to determine what compounds they are made of, in the hopes of discovering if life once existed there.

The Spirit rover ceased transmission in May of 2011, but Opportunity is still going, having already logged 21 miles. Both rovers were part of a three month Mars mission which landed there in March of 2004. If it's landing is successful, Curiosity will send back only black and white photos of the Martian terrain during it first few days, but it is capable of recording hours of full color video of it's surroundings.

Scientist at JPL, (Jet Propulsion Laboratories) and in other locations are excited about the upcoming Mars mission. It represents a chance to go further and do more, and there fore discover more. Learning about how the solar system and the planets within it where formed may serve to deepen our understanding of how life began, at least in our part of the universe. One could only hope that some clues to how life can form will be revealed. And if so, it will help increase our knowledge about the formation of life on Earth and through out our galaxy.

Live coverage of Curiosity's landing will begin Sunday August 5th at 9pm EDT courtesy of  the Space Center in Houston. It may make for some very interesting TV viewing, so if you are not able to watch, you may want to set you DVR so that you too will have a chance to see history in the making.