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Dare Mighty Things: A Celebration of Curiosity
Posted: Tue 08/07/2012 09:45 AM | By: Amy Shearn
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Sunday night something happened that caused grown-up scientific types to go crazy with happiness, like so:
Photo: The Mail Online
Photo: The Mail Online
That's right, the little (one ton) unmanned rover that could has survived its "seven minutes of terror" and landed safely on the surface of Mars, tweeting to announce its arrival: "I'm safely on the surface of Mars. GALE CRATER I AM IN YOU!!!" And all of NASA breathed a sigh of relief. According to Anita Sengupta, one of NASA's aerospace engineers who had helped create the parachute needed to slow down the spacecraft on landing, "There's no room for error." (And how we loved to see women in that room....)

People even gathered in Times Square to watch the landing and celebrate. Hooray for science!

Photo: The Mail Online
Photo: The Mail Online
The Curiosity rover, with no time to celebrate, immediately started taking pictures of its surroundings (and itself, seen below in shadow) and beaming them back to its beaming family at NASA.

Photo: NASA
Photo: NASA

President Obama said of the successful landing of the rover: "It proves that even the longest of odds are no match for our unique blend of ingenuity and determination."

This is all very nice, but for a true sense of the odds, the challenges, the daring nature of this endeavor, the astounding number of moving parts that had to work just right to make this happen, you must watch this video:

Dare Mighty Things! It's a message for everyone's day, on Mars or not.

Read More:
Real-Life Visitors from Outer Space
Read Comic Books, Learn Science
Topics: Tech, News
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