Subscription Center
NASA's Curiosity has completed its longest trek yet. The Mars rover journeyed more than 30 meters on its 29th Martian day, which ended September 5 at 2:37 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time by Earth's clock. In total, the rolling laboratory has covered 109 meters but must traverse many more to reach its first scientific sampling site. Before it proceeds, Curiosity will take a few days to test equipment on its robotic arm.
This color-enhanced image comes from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and reveals a slightly earlier stage in the rover's travels. On September 2, the orbiter's High Resolution Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera took this photograph, as well as images of Curiosity's fallen back shell and parachute that helped the rover land safely.
In this picture, you can clearly see the parallel tread of Curiosity's tracks. The rover's descent onto the planet disturbed soil in patches (visible near the start of the tracks), revealing the dark sands below the Red Planet's dusty surface.
—Daisy Yuhas
See what we're tweeting about
BecCrew I have no idea what this means but I love it so much http://t.co/NA5WMMApWS
DNLee5 #DispatchesDNLee: Non-target capture Marsh Mongoose: http://t.co/h6iOKMW63v via @YouTube
Horganism Ahab to severed whale head: O head! thou hast seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham and not one syllable is thine!
Deadline: Jul 15 2013
Reward: $5,000 USD
SciBX: Science-Business eXchange, a joint publication from the makers
Deadline: Jul 25 2013
Reward: Varies
This challenge provides an opportunity for Solvers to build a web-based or mobile “app” to explore data relationships in scholarly conte
Powered By: 
YES! Send me a free issue of Scientific American with no obligation to continue the subscription. If I like it, I will be billed for the one-year subscription.
18 Comments
Add Commentmost fascinating trip to another world . . . .
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFluidizer, What?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisoh yeah, I'm sure the bush administration after breaking us with the continual wars of the Empire, I'm sure their corporate handlers wanted to extend space exploration. The only way privatized America will ever return to space with man (other than the space station) is if the Corporate Monolith can see a profit. To hell with the grand experiment.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat is to be gained by putting humans on Mars? Nothing! Okay, bragging rights -- too puerile -- except for those too ladened with testosterone.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe technology with the most direct effect here would be robotics with a heavy dose of AI. Space exploration should be done with robotics exclusively. Cost differences? 100's to 1000's of billions of dollars to put humans into space vs 10's of billions to do it robotically.
Leave human space exploration to the comic books where it belongs.
Yeesh, Fluidizer. Ya know, KoolAid is rather sugary and bad for you. You may want to switch to some other more nutritious source of reality.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"What is to be gained by putting humans on Mars?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe know that the sun is going to burn out in 5-billion years. We better be on a different planet long before that. Mars is just a step. The sooner that we find out what the problems will be for humans, the sooner we can mitigate or overcome them.
Hint. Comics are not real, and using them as your source of scientific information and ideas doesn't cut it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is one thing to be a child and inspired by comic books, and it's quite a different story to be an adult, supposedly educated, and use comic books as policy documents.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBesides what these gentlemen are saying in the interesting dialogue. I am looking at the picture where the Curiosity landed and it seems it landed in a not well leveled terrain. Is it correct? It looks like it got through and then out of a little depression in the ground. Very good that it did not rolled over. And changing subject, if you permit, probably the ball is on the business side with respect to space exploration. But that is what it looks like with an on the surface analysis. May be an in-depth analysis may render the fact that things are going well. For the time being let us enjoy that this little thing is rolling on another planet. Remember the later 60's and early 70's with all that interesting things going on is space exploration with Neil and all those nice guys and even ladies (Valentina) risking their very lives up there enclosed in those almost unbearable small metallic cans. And at the same time, all of us, around the globe, hoping and praying, that an atomic bomb would not explode right above our very heads. And ah, who knows, too early to thing about that, but with a little luck and much well directed work we may hop to another planet on time, before the sun gets tired and gives off heat no more! (P.S. We can not ignore that some people are beginning to talk about serious conflict in some areas of the world. Let us hope for the better and nobody gets hurt!)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"What is to be gained by putting humans on Mars? Nothing!"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThink outside the pinhead. Mars is the closest thing to an Earth parallel available. The complete absence of life, or once-upon-a-time presence ... tada, is one of the most basic big issues on the table. The issue is up there with Higgs and the Boson for importance.
A human expedition could make choices, exploit opportunities, and settle the question. A VW Beetle Buggy can explore a small, limited, decision-cramped, area. A big telescope can't even do that.
If you're looking for a 'So What?' shrug, try an expedition with the mission objective of taking a confirmation picture of Neil Armstrong's boot.
Manned space exploration is a pointless task not only because of the greater cost but because robotics technology can offer an infinitely larger amount of scientific data than a person could, again at lower costs, with no risk to life, and with the ability to explore, test, and sample for much greater amounts of time.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisScience has nothing to do with how inspirational your museum is, science is concerned with the acquisition of knowledge.
After a planet, say, Mars, has been thoroughly tested then comes publicity missions to mars for no other reason than to generate hype and funding. Can a human inhabited spacecraft travel millions of miles? No. Can a humans survive for years on the surface of mars? No. Can humans enter the sun's corona as the future planned solar probe will be able to? No. Case closed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAgreed, but a lot of our ideas in science initially start out as imagination, and then we figure it out in reality. A lot of the tech you have today originated in the imaginations of authors. Ideas have to begin somewhere, and then the science can be figured out.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLarryW, in a perfect world populated by intelligent beings that would be true but this isn't a perfect world and the US isn't populated by intelligent beings. The simple fact is that it is "the people's" money that is funding space exploration. And for "the people" to be willing to give their tax dollars to this cause they need to connect with it in some way. The fact is most people do not connect with robots in the same way they connect with humans. So you could say that putting people in space is PR. But, there are other reasons to involve people. First, robots are great and getting better every day but they are not even close in capabilities to people. Humans are very complex machines capable of judgement and problem solving well beyond the abilities of modern machines and likely will be for some time. Having that skill set available can be worth the additional expense. Another consideration is that space may become a home for some people. We need to solve the problems of extended exposure to conditions in interplanetary space.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo while I agree with you that robotics should form the backbone of space exploration, I also think there is a role for humans too.
While I think that human space travel in the past has seemed like the way to generate PR and enthusiasm, some substantial number of youngsters are getting a taste of robotics in high school, finally.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen I was young, building and fixing stuff was where the thrill was for many. Heath kits, (re)building car engines, rocketry (with real propellents), the Radio Shack hobbyists.
Today, there is MindStorm from Lego, 3-D printers to design and build components, Arduino micro controllers, mobile computers/programming. All this a more is available to the able-bodied and not alike -- in the 10's of thousands and more. An astronaut? What maybe one in a million at the outermost?
And how can one be not thrilled with Voyager 1 and 2? Thirty-five years they've been traveling.
Okay, in the US you will unlikely awaken any thrill in the masses of Americans whose interests lie with gluttonous consumption and positions such as science is just another belief system -- just like their religions -- unless man on Mars is pushed. It is certainly true that you might be able to thrill them to the tune of 100's of billions of dollars to place people on Mars before their stupor sets in again, but they would never miss the few 10's of millions for robotic space exploration and we would never need to awaken them from their mindless pursuits.
Space exploration benefits us here on earth.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhether one wants manned space exploration or not is irrelevent.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe US piggybank is full of IOU's. There will be no manned missions beyond NEO for the next few decades. US space exploration will be confined to half billion dollar unmanned missions.
Manned exploration at this time is unnecessary,expensive and dangerous.What is needed is to send as many robots as possible to the Moon and asteroids to start mining for elements in short supply here on Earth.These shortages are a great hindrance to the growth of the world economy.The nations that do this will be the superpowers of tomorrow.The moneys from this growth could create an unending boom that could eliminate poverty,war,and hunger.Bringing all the people on the planet to a middle class level that many people in industrial nations now enjoy.The time is now,the longer we wait brings us one day closer to a world war caused by a shortage of resources.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this