NASA’s Curiosity rover recently completed 4,000 days on Mars. The rover landed on Mars on August 6, 2012, and has been active on the planet for 3999 sols (4109 total days; 11 years, 92 days) as of November 6, 2023. 

The rover’s recent achievements include: 

• Drilling its 39th sample 
• Dropping the pulverized rock into its belly for detailed analysis 

The rover’s top speed on flat, hard ground is a little less than 0.1 mph (4.2 centimeters per second, or 152 meters per hour). It carries a radioisotope power system that generates electricity from the heat of plutonium’s radioactive decay. 

The rover’s scientific goals include: 

• Searching for and characterizing a wide range of rocks and soils for clues to past water activity on Mars 
• Targeting sites on opposite sides of Mars that looked like they were affected by liquid water in the past

Four thousand Martian days after setting its wheels in Gale Crater on Aug. 5, 2012, NASA’s Curiosity rover remains busy conducting exciting science. The rover recently drilled its 39th sample then dropped the pulverized rock into its belly for detailed analysis

Yes, the Curiosity rover is still operational as of June 2023. As of November 6, 2023, the rover has been active on Mars for 3999 sols (4109 total days; 11 years, 92 days) since its landing. 

The rover’s internal power supply will allow it to continue operating through the Martian winter. However, there is a concern for one of the six metal wheels. 

As of January 2023, there are three rovers currently in operation on Mars: Curiosity, Perseverance, and Zhurong.

The Curiosity rover has made several discoveries on Mars, including: 

• Organic matter The rover found organic matter in rock samples, which suggests that there was once life on Mars 
• Methane The rover detected methane in the Martian atmosphere, which is formed from biological sources 
• Water The rover found signs of water, including clay minerals, a streambed, and rocks etched with wave ripples 
• Chemistry The rover found that ancient Mars had the right chemistry to support living microbes, including sulfur, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and carbon 
• Metallic object The rover found a strange metallic rock, nicknamed “Cacao”, that appears to be an iron-nickel meteorite 
• Mud cracks The rover found a patchwork of well-preserved ancient mud cracks, which could be key to the assembly of complex chemical building blocks necessary for microbial life

The Curiosity rover is powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG).  The RTG produces electricity from the heat of plutonium-238’s radioactive decay.  The rover’s power system includes a 110-Watt RTG called the Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (MMRTG).  The MMRTG charges the rover’s two primary batteries. 

The rover relies on a long-lived nuclear-powered battery rather than solar panels. Solar panels were used in the past Mars missions, but they ran the risk of losing power completely when enough dust accumulated on the panels. The rover needs about 100 watts (equivalent to a standard light bulb in a home) to drive.

The main goal of the Curiosity rover’s mission is to determine if Mars could ever have supported life. The rover is not designed to find life itself, but it carries instruments that can bring back information about the surrounding environment. 

The rover’s other goals include: 

• Assessing the habitability of ancient martian environments 
• Determining the role of water 
• Studying the climate and geology of Mars 
• Preparing for human exploration 
• Studying how Mars’ environment transformed into an inhospitable desert 
• Characterizing the climate of Mars 
• Characterizing the geology of Mars 

The rover’s landing site, Gale Crater, once had a calm lake that could have supported life

The four science goals for Mars exploration are: 

• Determine whether life ever arose on Mars 
• Characterize the climate of Mars 
• Characterize the geology of Mars 
• Prepare for human exploration 

A common thread linking these four topics is water, specifically its origin, nature, amount, and distribution as a function of time. 

The Perseverance rover has four science objectives that support the Mars Exploration Program’s science goals: 

• Looking for Habitability 
• Seeking Biosignatures 
• Catching Samples 
• Preparing for Humans

The science behind the mission to Mars is to understand whether Mars was, is, or can be, a habitable world. To do this, scientists need to understand how geologic, climatic, and other processes have worked to shape Mars and its environment over time. 

The four science goals for Mars exploration are: 

• Determine whether life ever arose on Mars 
• Characterize the climate of Mars 
• Characterize the geology of Mars 
• Prepare for human exploration 

The Mars Exploration Program is a science-driven program. It seeks to understand how the relative roles of wind, water, volcanism, tectonics, cratering, and other processes have acted to form and modify the Martian surface. 

The Mars Science Laboratory studies the rock and soil record in order to understand the geologic processes that created and modified the martian crust and surface through time. It looks for evidence of rocks that formed in the presence of water.

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