Curiosity Rover’s road trip to find life on Mars 2020

Is there any life on Mars?
Did mars ever have the right environmental conditions for a living?
Do aliens exist?

These are the main questions that the people on earth having about Mars. And finally, Nasa curiosity mission going to reveal answers for all the questions we are having.

Mars

When we consider the facts about Mars, Mars is the fourth planet from the sun and the second-smallest planet in the solar system and Mars has two moons Phobos, Deimos. Mars has a very dry terrestrial ground with a light atmosphere. Mars atmosphere consists mostly of carbon dioxide and water vapour. When Mars-size compared to earth, Mars is 15% of Earth’s volume which is much smaller than the earth and mars having about 38% of the Earth surface gravity. The temperature of Mars is about -81 F on average.

How long is a year in Mars compared to earth? 687 days

Earth takes 365 days for a full revolution and mars a bit slower taking 687 days for a full revolution.

Length of a day in Mars is 24 hours and 37 minutes which is 23 hours 56 minutes on the earth.

What is Curiosity mars rover?

Curiosity is the largest and the most successful and developed rover ever sent to Mars by NASA’s Mars science laboratory team. Which is the greatest mission to the mars so far. Launched on November 26, 2011, and Landed on the Mars on August 6, 2012. It’s a 56 million km journey.

Curiosity Mars launch is a 56 million km long journey mission.

What is the shortest distance from the earth to Mars?
Everyone having that question how far is the mars from earth? Well, It’s changing because they move around their orbits, During the close approach, the minimum distance from the earth to Mars is about 54.6 million kilometres. ( 33.9 million miles )

Main specifications of Curiosity rover

Mass of curiosity = 899 kg
Dimensions or the size of curiosity = 2.9 m long, 2.7 m wide and 2.2 m in height.
curiosity’s main power is generated through a Radioisotope thermoelectric generator.

Radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG)

Electricity is generated by these generators through the thermocouples using the heat energy of decaying radioactive isotopes like plutonium-238.

Do you know?
Curiosity fueled with 4.8 kg plutonium-238 dioxide which can generate power with a minimum lifetime of 14 years.

Apart from the above key specifications curiosity equipped with

A heat rejection system
Two onboard rover computers
Advance telecommunication system
Wheel system with suspension consists of six wheels
Highly advanced camera system and many sensors.
Robotic arm with a length of 2.1 m.

C lick here to see the latest pictures of Mars by curiosity rover

Goals and missions of curiosity

To investigate the life on Mars
Investigation of climate and geology of Mars
Investigations on environmental conditions favourable for microbial life.
Investigations of the presence of water on Mars
Finding facts for the preparation for human explorations on mars.

Major results and new facts found about Mars by curiosity rover

Evidence of the presence of liquid water in the past and the presence of rivers and lakes in the past are found.
Found the key elements like sulphur, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorous, and carbon form a mudstone in Mars which are mainly necessary elements for life on Mars.
Organic carbon found in Mars rocks which give a positive approach for life on Mars.
Presence of active methane in the atmosphere.
Presence of radiation which is bad for humans.

Mars 2020

Mars 2020 is an upcoming mars rover mission planned to launch on 30 July 2020 that carries the new mars 2020 rover Perseverance and the robotic helicopter Ingenuity to mars.

Perseverance rover

Design is much similar to the curiosity rover and perseverance carrying more scientific instruments with 23 cameras and two microphones to mars.

Ingenuity robotic helicopter

Ingenuity is a robotic helicopter designed to scout the special targets on mars and to find the best routes for the rovers to travel on mars.

Main objectives of the Mars 2020 project is to find the signs of ancient living pieces of evidence on mars and to find out facts about the past microbial life on Mars.

Experts saying that Nasa and Elon musk’s SpaceX is in a race to Mars explorations. If you are interested in Elon Musk and his companies mainly SpaceX and Tesla, you better refer to this article.

Who will get to the Mars first ?
NASA or SpaceX

The recent partnerships of Nasa and SpaceX are going well when considering the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Dragon spacecraft with two NASA Astronauts to the International Space Station on May 30, 2020.

With this approach, everyone is so excited about the future of mars exploration projects. We will keep you in touch with every new update on Mars explorations.