Curiosity Rover Begins Year-Long Journey to Mount Sharp
As of July 4th, NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity has finally embarked on its long-delayed journey towards Mount Sharp, a 5-mile journey through the rocky terrain of the Red Planet.
In what is thought to be a 9-12 month expedition, Curiosity has already departed from the ‘Glenelg’ area of the Gale Crater en route to the foothills of Mount Sharp with hopes of developing a better understanding of the shifts in the environmental conditions that have since shaped Mars into the arid and rocky landscape we recognize today.
In reaching Mount Sharp following several stops along the way, it is believed that Curiosity may have the opportunity to analyze billions of years of environmental transformation enclosed within the many layers of exposed sediment. As Robert Gonzalez of io9 describes, “To Curiosity's onboard equipment, each layer of strata is not unlike a page from a Martian history book that will enable planetary scientists to peer billions of years into the Red Planet's geological past, and, with any luck, add to a growing body of evidence that suggests Mars was once hospitable to life.”
To read more about Curiosity and Mount Sharp:
http://goo.gl/D4KcX
http://goo.gl/AyW1K
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