Monday, July 30, 2012

Curiosity, NASA Rover, Ready for Mars Landing - NYTimes.com

Curiosity, NASA Rover, Ready for Mars Landing - NYTimes.com:

"Right now, a spacecraft containing Curiosity — a car-size, nuclear-powered planet rover — is coasting at 8,000 miles per hour toward Mars, nearing the end of a journey that began in November. With tightening budgets, it is the last hurrah for NASA’s planetary program for quite a few years. Packed with ingenious new instruments, the rover promises to provide the best-ever examination of the Red Planet, digging up clues to a profound question: Could there ever have been life there?"

"Unlike the earlier rovers, Curiosity is powered by plutonium, generating electricity from the heat of radioactive decay. It is the same type of power supply that the two Voyager spacecraft traveling at the distant reaches of the solar system have been running on for nearly 35 years."



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