Zee Media Bureau
New Delhi: NASA Mars Curiosity Rover on Tuesday marked one Martian year i.e. 687 Earth days since it first landed on Mars.
Dubbed as the biggest scientific mission of the decade, the robotic rover was assigned the task to determine if mars ever provided the basic ingredients favorable for microbial life.
NASA also mentioned on micro-blogging site Twitter about the successfull completion of first Martian year of Curiosity alongwith a latest selfie.
.@MarsCuriosity marks its first full Martian year (687 Earth days) with success: http://t.co/RAQDMRR83s Selfie: pic.twitter.com/h1w5G7Pcms
— NASA (@NASA) June 23, 2014
Here are important findings by Rover during the first Martian year:
-One of Curiosity’s first major findings was an ancient riverbed.
-Assessing natural radiation levels both during the flight to Mars and on the Martian surface provides guidance for designing the protection needed for human missions to Mars.
-Measurements of heavy-versus-light variants of elements in the Martian atmosphere indicate that much of Mars` early atmosphere disappeared by processes favoring loss of lighter atoms, such as from the top of the atmosphere. Other measurements found that the atmosphere holds very little, if any, methane, a gas that can be produced biologically.
-The first determinations of the age of a rock on Mars and how long a rock has been exposed to harmful radiation provide prospects for learning when water flowed and for assessing degradation rates of organic compounds in rocks and soil.
(With Agency inputs)
