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First images of Mars beamed home

August 7, 2012

Scientists have been able to scan early images of an ancient crater on Mars. They believe it may hold clues about whether life forms once existed on Earth's nearest neighbor.

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In this image from NASA TV, shot off a video screen, one of the first images from a second batch of images sent from the Curiosity rover is pictured of its wheel after it successfully landed on Mars. The video screen was inside the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) team inside the Spaceflight Operations Facility for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California August 5, 2012.The rover landed on the Martian surface shortly after 10:30 p.m. Pacific time on Sunday (1:30 a.m. EDT Monday/0530 GMT) to begin a two-year mission seeking evidence the Red Planet once hosted ingredients for life, NASA said. REUTERS/Courtesy NASA TV/Handout (UNITED STATES - Tags: SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY) FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS. THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. IT IS DISTRIBUTED, EXACTLY AS RECEIVED BY REUTERS, AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS
Image: Reuters

Late Monday (U.S. time), NASA's nuclear-powered rover Curiosity beamed the probe's first low-resolution video back to Earth showing its final moments of descent to the red planet.

The full video was "just exquisite," said Michael Malin, chief scientist of the mission.

Grainy black-and-white photographs of Martian gravel, a mountain at sunset, and the red planet's hazy atmosphere, could also be seen in the seven-minute transmission.

In one photograph from a camera placed on the front of the rover, "if you squinted and looked the right way, you could see a silhouette of Mount Sharp in the setting sun," said John Grotzinger, chief mission scientist from the California Institute of Technology, when commenting on the first images transmitted back to NASA headquarters in California.

The photos show "a new Mars we have never seen before," said mission manager Mike Watkins.

"So every one of those pictures is the most beautiful picture I have ever seen," he added.

'Miracle of engineering'

Curiosity landed right on target late Sunday night, after completing its eight-month, 566 million kilometer (352 million mile) journey from Earth to the red planet.

Engineers work on a model of the Mars rover Curiosity at the Spacecraft Assembly Facility at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, (Foto:Damian Dovarganes/AP/dapd)
Curiosity will spend two years on Mars gathering scientific dataImage: AP

NASA scientists hailed Curiosity's flawless descent and landing on Mars as a "miracle of engineering."

The space agency plans to continue its decade-long search for Mars' lost water with missions across the planet to see if Earth's neighbor once harbored ingredients necessary for sustaining life.

The one-ton, six-wheeled rover is NASA's first astrobiology mission since the 1970s Viking probes.

Astronauts to Mars

Due to budget constraints, NASA was forced to cancel a planned joint U.S.-European mission to Mars, scheduled for 2016 and 2018.

"If Curiosity finds something interesting," NASA Chief, Charlie Bolden told The Associated Press in an interview, "then it could spur the public and congress to provide more money for more Martian exploration." No matter what, he added "Curiosity's mission will help NASA as it tries to send astronauts to Mars by the mid-2030s."

jlw/sej (AP, AFP, Reuters)