NASA's Mars Science Laboratory & the SUV-sized rover Curiosity launched atop a ULA Atlas-V 541 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Space Launch Complex-41 on November 26, 2011. After cruising the void between our worlds for nine months Curiosity arrived at her destination, MARS, and carried out the riskiest and most dangerous landing attempt ever conducted by any spacecraft to date in order to reach the base of Gale Crater, which promised to reveal Mars' geological history in a way scientists could only previously imagine. In the time since Curiosity has proven that Mars was a wet world full of clean fresh water in its history, and could have supported life. Whether or not life actually ever existed there, however, is a question future missions will have to answer. To this day Curiosity is still making her way towards Mt Sharp, where the rover will climb the mountain to reveal more secrets of the geological history of Mars in the layers of the mountain.

Coverage for Zero-G News and ARES Institute.

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