NASA's Curiosity rover on Mars spotted scaling the 'Mont Mercou' from Space

Just a few days ago, we got our first pictures from China's Tianwen-1 Mars probe. We now have images of NASA's Curiosity rover on Mars spotted scaling the 'Mont Mercou' from Space.The Curiosity rover first landed on Mars on the 6th of August, 2012 and has been active for about eight years and 289 days. Curiosity measures up to a size of a full-size sedan on earth. The Curiosity rover designed to carry out a two-year mission is still active as of 22nd of May, 2021. 

 

The Curiosity Rover was designed, to explore the Gale crater on Mars and relay the findings to NASA. The knowledge gained from this project would then helped NASA with building the current generation of rovers Perseverance and the copter Ingenuity that are currently on an active mission on Mars since 2020. 

In August 2012, the Curiosity rover landed inside the Gale Crater that is 96 miles wide. The mission was to determine if the crater showed any signs of having supported life. And the mission was successful when Curiosity found signs indicating that Gale once a lake with a stream-like system and could have supported life. Post the mission success Curiosity Rover started its journey towards Mount Sharp, located close to Gale Crater and rises high in the Martian sky. The Curiosity rover reached the foothills of Mount Sharp in September 2014.

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) captured the Curiosity rover scaling the slopes of Mount Sharp last month. The Picture was captured by Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's HiRISE(High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) instrument on April 18. The HiRISE instrument can pick up details as small as a chair on the surface of Mars. The Picture provides a birds-eye view of the Curiosity rover. It's great to see a Man-Made object still functioning on aline soil for the last eight years and 289 days.

In other news, China's Mars mission saw a successful landed on Mars on the 14th of May, 2021. The Long March5(Y4) rocket carrying the Tianwen-1 probe took off from the Wenchang LC-101 Launch site on the 23rd of July, 2020. After seven months of inter solar travel, Tianwen-1 reached the Mars orbit on the 10th of February, 2021.