On November 26, 2011, at 10:02 am, Curiosity, NASA’s new Mars rover launched. It landed safely on the red planet, in Gale Crater, eight months and twelve days later on August 6th 2012, at 6:11 am. The Mars Rover Mission had been postponed until late 2016- early 2017 because of a lack of funding. The mission has now been funded and once again, the rover was able to be launched as previously scheduled. NASA named this rover, Curiosity.

Curiosity has goals to find life on Mars and test the air to find out if the red planet can be our next Earth. Scientists have wanted to find a planet like Earth for people to inhabit for a very long time. Now, they have almost found it. Mars just may be the next planet that humans ruin.

This is the first color picture that Curiosity sent back to NASA of Mars.It looks like one of a desert. There are rumors that there have been water and life organisms on this planet, but at the state it is in now, it is unlikely to find any organisms other than bacteria.

This is the first rock that Curiosity encountered was 2.5 meters away from it. It vaporized the surface of the rock, making the basic chemistry of the rock evident. This was supposedly one of the smaller achievements that the rover was supposed to encounter. Scientists at NASA are hoping for Curiosity to encounter signs of life on this planet, as they try to make it our second home.