It successfully landed today on 8.32 (Greece time) on the planet Mars the robotic vehicle Curiosity, NASA announced. The seven-minute process was the hardest landing of an unmanned spacecraft ever on the Red Planet. The vehicle immediately began sending pictures back to earth and searching for extraterrestrial life forms.

The Curiosity rover sent its first signal when it entered the Martian atmosphere. "We received signals, things look good" said a member of the mission. NASA's space shuttle launched from Cape Canaveral on 26 November 2011.

Its mission is to explore Mars in order to determine whether the Red Planet ever had the conditions to support any life.

Immediately after the successful landing the mission members erupted in cheers and one of the officials handed out Mars chocolates…

The same atmosphere of joy prevailed when the robot sent the first photo, of exceptional purity, of his shadow on the ground of Mars, immediately after his landing.

US President Barack Obama in his announcement speaks of an unprecedented technological achievement.

The program cost money 2,5 di. dollars.

The craft entered the Martian atmosphere at a speed of approx 20 thousands of km/h. A combination of systems (parachutes, specially designed thrusters etc.) built into the craft helped Curiosity to land as "softly" as possible so as not to damage any of its advanced and ultra-sensitive instruments.

New ambitious exploration phase

A new ambitious phase of exploration of the neighboring "red planet" is thus inaugurated, with the main stake being finding traces of microbial life, either in the distant past, or more recently, either- as the most visionary hope- even in the present.

In essence, the new mission is expected to lay a firmer foundation for a future human-first mission to the planet, something that is not expected to happen at least two decades ago.

The weight 900 kg nuclear powered (with plutonium fuel) six-wheeled robotic rover, with the official name "Mars Science Laboratory" (Mars Scientific Laboratory"), it's the size of a car, it is more than twice as long and five times heavier than the twin rovers “Spirit” and “Opportunity” who reached Mars the 2004.

"Curiosity" was launched on 26 November 2011 and traveled approx 248 million. kilometers to reach Mars, being the
largest and most expensive vehicle ever sent to another planet.

The entire shipment cost approx 2,5 billion dollars and it is hoped that the vehicle will last many more years than the two years NASA originally planned.

It is the most complete and technologically advanced space mobile scientific laboratory, as it has a range of cameras and scientific instruments, as well as a robotic sample collection arm, which will allow him to carry out, in the coming years, a wide range of on-site scientific analyses. Every day, the results of his surveys of the Martian soil will be sent electronically to Earth for further analysis by
the scientists.

The autonomous rover, which will remain stationary in its place for several days, until it is ensured that all is well with its electronic systems, will focus his investigations on its alluvial rocks, height approx 5 km, Mount Sharp (or, as is its official name, Aeolis mountains), which is located inside the ancient and huge Gale Crater, latitudinal 154 km. and aged over 3,5 di. years.

The rocks in question are considered a kind of "time capsule" for the successive geological stages of the planet from the wettest
and his warm past to his arid and cold present.

The vehicle- laboratory, which will move slowly with a speed of just 30 meters per hour (going through the lot 200 meters per day), will continue to analyze Martian rocks looking for complex organic molecules, which will probably constitute the
chemical "signature" of some past or present microorganisms.

But the difficulty for scientists will be to make sure that such carbon-based molecules are indeed of biological origin (the metabolism of microbes), since they could also have been produced through abiotic geochem
procedures.

Research so far has shown that once upon a time, billions of years ago, Mars had an atmosphere and liquid water, therefore a basic condition for the emergence of some form of life was met.

Now, it is hoped that the “Curiosity” will take another step, also finding evolved organic molecules that could be remnants or byproducts of such microorganisms.

Continuation of the article attanea.gr