Mars rover sends back human voice recording
The first recorded human voice that travelled from Earth to Mars and then back to Earth was released on Monday at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.
The voice playback was released along with new telephoto camera views of the varied Martian landscape during a news conference at JPL.
In spoken words radioed to the Mars rover Curiosity and then back to NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN) on Earth, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden congratulated NASA employees and the agency’s commercial and government partners on the successful landing of Curiosity earlier this month, reported Xinhua.
“Curiosity will bring benefits to Earth and inspire a new generation of scientists and explorers, as it prepares the way for a human mission in the not too distant future,” said Mr. Bolden in the recorded message. The telephoto images beamed back to Earth show a scene of eroded knobs and gulches on a mountainside, with geological layering clearly exposed.
The new views were taken by the 100-mm telephoto lens and the 34-mm wide-angle lens of the Mast Camera (Mastcam) instrument.
Mastcam has photographed the lower slope of the nearby mountain called Mount Sharp, according to JPL.
“Those layers are our ultimate objective. The dark dune field is between us and those layers. This is a very rich geological site to look at and eventually to drive through,” said Mastcam principal investigator Michael Malin.
A drive early Monday placed Curiosity directly over a patch where one of the spacecraft’s landing engines scoured away a few inches of gravelly soil and exposed underlying rock.
Researchers plan to use a neutron-shooting instrument to check for water molecules bound to minerals at this partially excavated target, JPL said. Curiosity already is returning more data from the Martian surface than have all of NASA’s earlier rovers combined, according to JPL.
Keywords: Curiosity, Mars mission, NASA, Mount Sharp
The layered sediments of Martian mountains are striated and it is possible that they had undergone flow of water or some fluid to make corossion and straits of lanes under the mountains.They are not volcanic or igneous rocks at this site. Materic bombardments are also very little in this area.It could be a dried up sea bed also.We can many interesting results from the probe. congrats to scientists.
The red planet as we call it is to be researched for valuable elements
and water content if any. We can not expect abundance of water there for
human living.The temperatures at the Martian surface may not be
conducive for any form of life.
apparently it is looking like barren land on earth.I wish that our
Planet Earth should not result in "this".After all we are scratching our
environment till its core.So request all "Earthians" not to become
"Martians" by ruining our own planet.
Sir,
The photograph reveals the presence of Fe, Mn layers and is wellbedded ferrugenous sediments indicating layering, bedding in a marine environment. The possibility of water had already been indicated from these rocks.We can expect many more things from the geology of this terrain.
A.Natarajan
Director
Geological Survey of India.
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