Curiosity Across the Stars
By Caleb A. Scharf
This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American
This is not a comet, it's Curiosity on its way to Mars
This, I guarantee, is a view of NASA's Curiosity rover embarking on its 250 day trip to Mars that you may not have seen before. It's an extraordinary piece of time-lapse footage taken from Australia not long after launch from Cape Canaveral. It shows a glowing plume from the Centaur stage after a burn over the Indian Ocean - the Centaur rocket has propelled Curiosity first into a low-Earth orbit and then into an escape trajectory towards Mars. You can also see the sunlit spacecraft itself, a tiny speck gliding across the star-fields of the Milky Way as it heads for interplanetary space.
Bon voyage Curiosity!
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With thanks to the Sir Thomas Brisbane Planetarium
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