Curiosity down safe on Mars!

August 5, 2012 | Science, Space | By: Mark VandeWettering

Today, around 10:31 Pacific Time, Curiosity successfully landed in the Gale crater on the surface of Mars, and has already sent back a couple of small black and white images. Carman and I were watching it on a combination of Nasa TV on our laptops and the CNN coverage. Thrilling stuff. Here are some of the cool tweets that hit my twitter feed, sampled from some net personalities, as well as just ordinary people that I know.


https://twitter.com/RoyEltham/status/232354087637749760


https://twitter.com/ragebauer/status/232350662900473857


https://twitter.com/dangillmor/status/232355807730208768

Apologies, the blackbird plugin that allows me to inject tweets into WordPress seems to be having difficulties. It may just resolve itself, so if you see tweets above, it got fixed.

Awesome stuff. I’ve previously blogged about how the Apollo program was instrumental in fanning the flames of curiosity and discovery in me when I was just five. I’d like to think that there are a bunch of kids, staying up past their bedtime (with the permission of their parents, naturally), who were inspired to learn about science, engineering and mathematics. What would even be more amazing would be for each of us to consider what we really want to achieve not just as a nation, but as a species. In the words of a former Facebook founder:

“The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads. That sucks.”
Jeff Hammerbacher

Let’s reach beyond the limits of our own greed, and work to solve the big problems that the world faces: poverty, hunger, pollution, energy, and intolerance. And let’s try to use science and engineering to learn more about our universe and our place in it.

You made me smile, Curiosity.

Comments

Comment from Mike K
Time 8/8/2012 at 7:48 pm

Yes, really awesome. An infinitely better endeavor than war.

I’m still holding out for microbial life on Mars. I want to see a digging rover!