NASA/ReutersOne year later, NASA's Curiosity of the Red Planet shows no signs of waning.
The mobile laboratory touched down in a Martian crater on Aug. 6, 2012 to study the habitability of the fourth planet from the Sun with hitherto unprecedented access.
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"Curiosity is finding that Mars would have supported life in the past (such as bacteria) and could possibly support human explorers in the future," Laurie Leshin, the dean of the School of Science at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, told the Daily News.
Leshin has been involved in planning and overseeing Curiosity since its inception about a decade ago. She was on the team that helped design the rover's goals and helped design some of its instruments.
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Over the past year, the car-sized rover culled more than 190 gigabytes of data, transmitted 36,700 full images and 35,000 thumbnail images to Earth and shot 75,000 lasers to study Martian geology.
"We've had great fortune to land right near a really interesting spot and to go investigate that with our drill and sample the rocks that formed in this ancient crater bottom on Mars," Leshin said.
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These rocks formed in a water environment several billion years ago, scientists deduced.
"If you were a bacteria on Mars several billion years ago, this would have been a nice place to swim around," Leshin joked.
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Curiosity found some remnants of this water environment beneath the planet's surface. It also discovered that the radiation levels were not as severe as scientists previously expected.
The information culled by the rover could help future astronauts train for surviving in the planet's harsh atmosphere and using its natural resources to their advantage.
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The rover is currently coasting toward the base of Mount Sharp. It will study the lower layers of the mountain that rises three miles high.
"The excitement is really just beginning. We are really only halfway through our primary mission," Leshin said. "There's more great stuff coming."
mwalsh@nydailynews.com
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