It’s a simple little game for iOS, Android and desktop created to celebrate the plucky little rover’s fourth anniversary, sending the vehicle up and over rocky terrain, in search of underground water caverns, all while trying not to tip over or break a wheel (a definitely real world hazard for Curiosity).
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Friday marks the fourth birthday for the rover.
For a more realistic view, check out this cool Experience Curiosity simulation that lets you explore Mars’ surface and learn about actual data discovered by NASA’s rover.
An identical unit back at NASA tests the experiments they plan to run on Mars, including analyzing soil samples. The Mars 2020 Rover, which is similar in design to Curiosity, will carry more life-detecting capabilities. Anyone who happened to be listening on the planet was greeted by the rover and the song.
“We’re talking significant periods of time – periods of time that are even significant for biology, if it ever took hold [on Mars]”, he said.
“In the thousands of images we’ve received from Curiosity, we see ones with bright spots almost every week”. The Curiosity Rover has already collected many samples which have been thoroughly examined in laboratory settings.
Selfies have made it much easier for NASA scientists to keep an eye on the rover’s conditions and maintenance needs. NASA isolated the error to get Curiosity moving again, but hasn’t fixed it yet.
Less than two months into the beginning of its mission, Curiosity found a piece of key evidence – water. The rover tracks methane on Mars and oddly saw a tenfold spike in the atmosphere in 2014. Curiosity was leaving the area when it took this image.
Large-scale crossbedding in the sandstone of this ridge on a lower slope of Mars’ Mount Sharp is typical of windblown sand dunes that have petrified.
Soon afterwards, Curiosity found fatty acids on Mars.
NASA researchers said they closely resemble features that are found in the southwestern United States.
But these high-tech microphones will still be useful long after the new rover is kicking around on the Martian surface.
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The rover’s science instruments are all still working fine, so Vasavada is eager to see what Curiosity finds over the next few years.
