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Hi, I'm Maria.
Welcome to another
special edition
of Mars month on NASA Now.
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We want to study the
habitability of Mars.
We want to really figure
out if it was ever capable
of supporting life,
and the way we do
that is really follow the
evidence of water on Mars.
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One of the most interesting
things about Mars is
that its changed over time.
What we see on Mars
today is very different
from what occurred
in the distant past,
and water is the real
interesting thing we are looking
for and the history of water
and how it's changed over time.
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We'll have more on the
science of Curiosity
but here's what's
happening on NASA Now.
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Here are some of the
first images captured
by the Mars Science Laboratory,
Curiosity after touching
down on the surface of Mars.
Curiosity has a large
assortment of cameras located
in different sections
of the rover,
all with various
functions and abilities.
Based on these pictures,
telemetry and confirmation
of positioning by the Mars
Reconnaissance Orbiter
and Mars Odyssey orbiter,
Curiosity is right
where scientists wanted
the rover to land.
The rover's location is
ideally situated in an area
with the kind of geology
that will allow Curiosity
to assess whether Mars ever
had an environment capable
of supporting microbial life.
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Curiosity is not only
the largest rover
to roam the surface of Mars,
it is also the most
sophisticated rover to date
and is packed with a ton
of science equipment.
We caught up with
Dr. Ashwin Vasavada,
a Deputy Project Scientist for
the Mars Science Laboratory.
Dr. Vasavada told us how
Curiosity is a robotic geologist
with a very sophisticated
assortment of instruments
that will give scientists
and researchers more vital
information as the search
for extraterrestrial
life continues.
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As a scientist on this
mission, I help lead the team
of over 300 scientists
around the world
that will be running the
experiments once we get to Mars.
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When Curiosity touches
down the surface of Mars,
we have to make sure the rover
touched down in a healthy state.
So, we run a lot of
checks on the rover.
It checks if all
of its systems out,
we move all the different
mechanisms
to make sure they still
operate successfully
and then we turn the keys
over to the science team,
really which I'm a part of
and the first thing
we'll investigate is our
immediate surroundings.
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Curiosity's main objective
is to figure out if the place
where we land on Mars,
Gale Crater ever was a
habitable environment.
We'd love to know whether Mars
is a habitable planet today
or even at some point in the
past and for that we need
to forward the key
ingredients of life.
Life on Earth, and that's the
only life we really know of,
needs a few things.
It needs water.
Our bodies are made
mostly of water.
It needs atoms like carbon,
all of our cells contain carbon
as an essential building block
in the atoms and molecules
in our bodies and it
needs a source of energy.
We use food and sunlight
helps with the food
and all those sorts of things.
So, we are going to look for
three things in this environment
on Mars to figure out if ever
was habitable environment.
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We've designed Curiosity
to be a robot geologist
and a robot geochemist.
We take a lot of pictures so
that human geologists here
on Earth can kind of get a
feeling for what it would be
like if they were
walking on Mars.
Another big achievement
that we're going to do
with Curiosity is to take
samples of rock with a drill.
We'll drill into rocks, get
powder from those rocks,
and deliver those samples,
to some fairly sophisticated
laboratory instruments located
inside the rover.
Those instruments will
be doing some chemical
and geochemical experiments
to figure
out exactly what those
rocks are made out of
and do they contain those
key ingredients for life.
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One of the reasons
the rover is so big is
because the entire front end
of the rover contains
two very sophisticated
analytical laboratories.
This is where we drop the
samples that we acquire
from rocks and soils
into these laboratories.
These laboratories
do two things.
One of them is called
an X-ray diffractometer.
Now, that just means that you
shine x-rays through samples
of powdered rock and
because the rocks are made
out of many crystals, when you
shine an x-ray bam through,
it creates a little
rainbow pattern.
Now, that rainbow pattern is
very distinctive for what types
of minerals are in the rocks
and the minerals that are
in rocks tell us the
environment that occurred
when those minerals formed.
The other big instrument is
called a mass spectrometer gas
chromatograph, so it's a pretty
sophisticated instrument.
By sending the gas that
we bake off of the rocks
through this gas
chromatograph we'll be able
to detect any organic molecules,
carbon containing molecules,
that are in those rocks.
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If we found any evidence
that would suggest
that life took hold on
Mars like it did on Earth,
we would immediately
want to follow that up
and explore it in
greater detail.
And one of the best things
we could do to follow
on that would be to bring
rocks back from Mars to Earth
so we could study them in our
laboratories here on Earth.
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Now a month since
landing in August,
Curiosity is giving Dr. Vasavada
and his team amazing amounts
of data, bringing
us closer than ever
to answering the question
about life on Mars.
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One of the key instruments
that scientists have been using
to unlock the mysteries of Mars
has been specialized spacecraft
in orbit around Mars.
Here's an activity that
uses real data from Mars.
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Teachers, you and your
students can be part
of an ongoing project
using images captured
with the THEMIS visible
wavelength camera
on board the Mars
Odyssey spacecraft.
Look for Mars Student
Imaging Project.
You'll find it on the NASA
Explorer Schools Virtual Campus.
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Well that's it for NASA NOW.
Be sure to visit our Facebook
page and leave a comment.
Join us for another special Mars
edition on the next NASA NOW!
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NASA Now comes to you
from the Virtual Campus
at NASA Explorer Schools.
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