Advanced US probe lands on Mars.
The Curiosity rover is on a mission to find out whether the Martian environment is habitable.
After nearly nine months and a journey of 570 million kilometers from Earth, the Curiosity rover plunged into the Martian atmosphere at speeds up to 21,240 km/h before landing in a basin called Gale Crater on the planet's surface with the help of a hypersonic parachute.
Costing up to $2.5 billion, Curiosity is one of NASA's most advanced and expensive space exploration projects. This rover weighs nearly 1 ton, almost five times the weight of any Mars rover previously launched, and is also more than twice as large.
The landing of Curiosity on the surface of Mars attracted great attention from American and international scientists because, during this event, NASA tested a completely new landing technique. Due to the signal delay from Curiosity to Earth, the spacecraft landed in fully automated mode and performed a series of difficult maneuvers during its descent.
The Curiosity rover was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida (USA) on November 26, 2011. It was equipped with many advanced instruments, including a laser beam designed to target rocks, with the mission of determining whether the Martian environment could support life.
According to Tintuc-M
