Curiosity is collecting samples and exploring the Mars´ surface with its on board science instruments.
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The US space agency has released a fun social media game called – wait for it – Mars Rover, which gamers can play while Curiosity works diligently in order to collect its 17th sample.
While the game tries to imitate the real rover on Mars, showing a reddish atmosphere and terrain due to Mars´s iron content, along with a six-wheeled vehicle and instruments, it does not imitate with 100 percent accuracy its speed, as curiosity´s speed on Mars´ only reaches two inches every second.
With the new mobile game, players can also search for water buried on Mars by using radar. To make the rover’s birthday more special, NASA has partnered with the gamer network app GAMEE to develop the Mars Rover video game.
Michelle Viotti, manager of Mars public engagement initiatives at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, was of the view that they have come up with a new way for people engage with Curiosity rover and activities carried out by them. JBL has this to say about the game, “Using social networks, the user can share the fun with friends”.
Curiosity landed inside Mars’ Gale Crater on August 6, 2012, EDT (evening of August 5, PDT), with a touchdown technique called the sky-crane maneuver.
Now on a multi-month ascent toward higher and progressively younger geological evidence on Mount Sharp, the rover hopes to explore some new rock types and provide even more information on the layered mountain inside Gale Crater.
To date, the rover has beamed more than 128,000 images home to Earth and traveled 8.43 miles (13.57 km) on the Red Planet’s surface, NASA officials said.
As of the fourth anniversary, Curiosity has driven 13.57 kilometers.
During its time on Mars, the $2.5 billion Curiosity mission has determined that parts of the planet could have supported microbial life billions of years ago.
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NASA is looking for Mars Rover drivers and it very easy to qualify for one.
