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NASA's top scientists - including a Texas A and M Universityresearcher - hope to find out how Mars' climate has evolved overbillions of years, and answers could come soon in the missioninvolving Curiosity, a Volkswagen-sized rover that is headed towardthe Red Planet and will land in early August. It was launched Nov.26, 2011, and is traveling at 13,000 miles per hour. Once there, it could answer many questions scientists have had fordecades, including some involving the possibility of life on theplanet, says Mark Lemmon, an atmospheric sciences professor atTexas A and M who will serve as one of Curiosity's cameraoperators. The mission involves Curiosity landing near the Martian equator andinside Gale Crater on Aug. 6, and for the next two years, it willinvestigate how climate change over billions of years has affectedMars and examine the nearby clay layers from an environmentalaspect. It will also try to determine whether Mars has ever hadconditions favorable for life, even in the smallest microbialforms. "Curiosity will have the ability to drive scientific instruments,including a camera on a robotic arm, and also a new twist this time- high-definition video cameras," Lemmon explains. "The cameras have the ability to take landscape images as well assome very closeup images, sort of similar to what you might see bylooking through a magnifying glass. We hope to have some images ofMars we've never come close to getting in previous missions." Curiosity resembles a sort of high-tech dune buggy. It standsalmost eight feet high, weighs about 1,800 pounds and employs anuclear-powered battery to run its many scientific tests. Lemmon says the Gale Crater was specifically selected for severalreasons. It's beside a high mountain ("it's really huge, about thesize of Mt. Rainier in Washington State, but made of sedimentaryrock"), and the area around the crater shows near-certain proofthat water was in the area at some time. "We know water was there, and possibly in large amounts, maybesometimes as large acid-filled lakes," he notes. "So if water wasthere and it's dry now, what happened? What changes occurred inMars' climate history that made it go from wet to dry over time? Wehope to find out." Lemmon is no stranger to NASA missions. He's participated onnumerous such explorations in the past, including the Spirit andOpportunity Mars rovers that landed eight years ago, Phoenix,Cassini and other others. But this one could be the most excitingof all, he points out. "It's always fun to go back to Mars," he says of the Curiositymission. "We know so much more about Mars than we did just a fewyears ago. We took hundreds of thousands of images using thecameras on Spirit and Opportunity, and Curiosity will take just asmany or more. "What they show will let us see Mars in a completely differentlight than ever before.". I am an expert from outdoorsplayequipment.com, while we provides the quality product, such as Outdoor Playgrounds For Kids Manufacturer , Seesaws For Children Manufacturer, Childrens Outdoor Play Equipment,and more.
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