As the Curiosity rover slowly ascends Mount Sharp, it's getting its first up-close look at Mars's sand dunes -- the first time we've investigated active dunes on another planet.
While the Mars rovers’ drivers sit in relative comfort here on Earth, the rovers themselves do get beat up a bit. In honor of Curiosity’s second anniversary on Mars, The Verge put together a cool story showing the before and after pics of the toll the harsh environment has exacted on the rover. Scroll through for yourself to see some of the dents, scratches and holes that Curiosity has accumulated over the years. Oh, and all the dust it picked up. There’s a lot of dust.
You know you've got a microbiome. Did you know NASA's Curiosity rover does, too? A recent study of swabs taken from the rover before it launched found its surfaces contained 65 bacteria species, Nature News reports.
One year to the day after Curiosity made its incredible sky-crane landing onto Mars, Mattel has announced that Barbie will be joining the rover on the red planet. Mars Explorer Barbie wears a very close-fitting space suit with pink plastic space boots, helmet and backpack. (We hope her "one-doll mission" isn't also one-way.)
Just days after waking up from a self-imposed safe mode, the Mars rover Curiosity is getting some extra shuteye as it waits for a solar storm to calm down. On Tuesday, a huge solar flare erupted from the sun's far side as viewed from Earth. But it was right toward Mars, and it also hurled a cloud of superheated gas toward the Red Planet.
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