Martians getting curious - NASAs Curiosity rover has been on Mars now for 3-years

#NASA #CuriosityRover #Mars NASA's Mars rover Curiosity had landed on the Red Planet Mars on 5 August 2012 and, has now been an integral part of the Martian landscape – that must have caused furrows on the foreheads of Martians up there. Anyway, Curiosity has trundled across the Red Planet for three very productive and eventful years and has sent back useful information.
This has been reported in space.com dated 5 August 2015.

The six-wheeled robot named Curiosity had a dramatic and unprecedented touchdown on the Martian surface with the aid of a rocket-powered "sky crane" that lowered the 1-ton rover gently by using cables. And, once on ground, the robot set out on its mission of whether its immediate environs — a 96-mile-wide (154 kilometers) crater named Gale — could ever have supported microbial life.
Based on the initial findings, scientists concluded that Gale Crater could have supported a potentially habitable lake-and-stream or water system for long stretches of time — perhaps for millions of years at a time.
The progress has been slow and NASA has to keep requesting for more and more time to carry on its investigations – Curiosity is, after all, a robot and it has to be guided on occasions to perform intriguing tasks that had not been visualized earlier.
Anyway, the man-and-machine team is carrying out work for the future of mankind and needs to get full support and cooperation from all quarters.
(Image courtesy wikimediacmmons.org)

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How to protect Mars from contamination by germs from planet Earth

#planetmars #curiosityrover #astronauts #apollomission The search for life on the Red Planet Mars has been taken up by various agencies and the time has now come to work out methods of how to protect the environment of Mars from contamination by germs from our planet Earth. This is a major task as reported in space.com dated 11 February 2015 because life on the alien plane would be mostly of microbes and contamination could prove disastrous.
The questions that would naturally arise are - how can it be ensured that microbes from Earth do not hitchhike to the Red Planet and spread there? Obviously, it would be necessary to ensure that once a spacecraft is there on the surface of Mars, there must be mechanisms to protect the environment from changes that could hurt any existing Martian life.
At the other extreme is the question – if we do come across some form of life on Mars, how would it affect us humans? As biologist John Rummel, currently a visiting scholar at McGill University, has put it – no one would want to contaminate what we want to study. And, in case there is any life out there, how safe would it be to bring it back to Earth either robotically, or through Mars astronauts returning to Earth.
The problem would mostly arise in habitable locations on Mars - Curiosity rover mission, which landed on Mars in 2012, has come across a probable site around Gale Crater. There was ample evidence of past water in the form of an ancient stream bed. Obviously, these are danger prone areas where contamination could occur and which must be kept in check.
Incidentally, during the Apollo missions, when astronauts returned to Earth, they were placed under quarantine for 21 days.

Man seen on Mars - NASA picture shows a man working on Curiosity rover

#curiosityrover #NASA #manonmars #methaneonmars Here is an opportunity to let our imagination run wild conjuring up visions of life on Mars – it is a fact that scientists have long wondered as to whether life really does exist on Mars and a latest set of pictures released by NASA appears to confirm claims of conspiracy theorists that we are not alone in the universe.
The images have, reportedly, been taken by a NASA navigation camera and it appears to show a human-like figure working on the Mars Curiosity Rover – this rover is right now on the Red Planet.
The interesting part is that the pictures depict a human-shaped shadow looming over the probe as if they are repairing it. From initial looks, the shadow resembles a male figure without any helmet – this is presumed because short spiky hair is visible. The man (?) wears an air tank on his back and most of the body is covered.
The pictures have been reported to the monitoring website UFO sightings daily, and some people are claiming this to be a proof that there is life on Mars.
Incidentally, Gary McKinnon, an alleged computer hacker, who had reportedly laid his hands on classified documents from the U.S. government, has revealed that he had come across files that showed the existence of 'extra-terrestrial officers'.
The sudden appearance of this ‘man on Mars’ has come on the back of news that in December last that an instrument on the Curiosity Rover had identified spikes of methane which, in the opinion of scientists, might have come from bacteria-like organisms on the surface of Mars.