What Has Curiosity Learned About Mars In 10 Years Since Landing?

Space.com

NASA highlights some of the discoveries it has made on the Red Planet.  Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Transcript

00:00 The Curiosity rover set out to answer a big question.

00:04 Could Mars have supported ancient life?

00:06 Now we know the answer,

00:08 but there's still so much more to learn.

00:10 (upbeat music)

00:13 To help NASA's Curiosity rover

00:17 safely explore the surface of Mars,

00:20 engineers here on Earth

00:21 use a nearly identical sibling named Maggie.

00:25 This full-scale engineering model

00:28 helps the team practice operations in the Mars yard

00:31 at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

00:34 I'm Raquel Villanueva,

00:35 here with Curiosity Deputy Project Scientist Abigail Freeman.

00:39 Her team is celebrating their 10th year on the Red Planet.

00:44 Where has the rover traveled to in the past decade?

00:47 Well, we've spent the last basically 10 years

00:50 Martian mountain climbing.

00:52 Curiosity landed at the base

00:54 of a big mountain named Mount Sharp

00:56 that is made of layers of rocks.

00:59 So we're climbing the mountain

01:00 to give us a snapshot of Martian history.

01:03 We've driven about 17 and a half miles

01:06 and more impressively,

01:07 we've climbed over 2000 feet in elevation up the mountain.

01:11 We're all the way up in these hills now.

01:13 It's pretty spectacular.

01:15 With all that climbing, how is Curiosity doing?

01:18 Pretty good, actually.

01:20 Now all of our science instruments

01:22 are working just about as good as they did when we landed.

01:25 We have nearly our full capabilities.

01:27 The arm and the drill and the rover,

01:29 they're a little bit arthritic.

01:31 So we have to be a little bit gentle when we use them.

01:33 And our wheels are a little bit beat up.

01:35 The wheels on Maggie look great,

01:37 but we have some test wheels that we've really destroyed.

01:40 The wheels on the rover are somewhere between these two.

01:43 You know, we just drilled our 35th sample the other week.

01:47 So still doing amazing science.

01:50 And how do you decide where the rover's gonna go?

01:52 Do you work with other NASA missions?

01:54 You know, the data from the Mars orbiters

01:56 have been really helpful.

01:58 The spectrometers, that's the kind of instrument

02:00 on Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

02:02 have told us where the interesting minerals are

02:05 and where the best places to go

02:07 to look at changing environments are.

02:09 And then in particular,

02:10 the cameras on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter,

02:12 they're so good.

02:14 And they're so helpful at allowing us

02:17 to find the safest way that we can climb this mountain.

02:20 What would you say is the biggest discovery

02:22 your team has made?

02:23 You know, Curiosity was sent to Mars

02:26 in order to answer a really big question.

02:28 Did Mars have all of the ingredients

02:30 that we know life needed?

02:32 And 10 years later,

02:33 not only have we given that answer a definitive yes,

02:37 but we've also seen that those ingredients were around

02:40 for tens of millions of years.

02:43 And what's next for Curiosity?

02:45 We can see from orbit

02:46 that we're getting to a place in the mountain

02:48 that likely records a pretty dramatic change

02:50 in the sorts of environments that we're around.

02:52 You know, the lakes that once filled Gale

02:55 started to dry out

02:57 and we're getting to that period in time.

02:59 So we're really interested in answering

03:01 how long do these habitable environments persist

03:05 as Mars and Gale crater went through

03:07 these pretty big climate changes.

03:10 I just can't wait to see what's next.

03:11 We've seen hints that the rocks

03:13 are gonna be very different very soon.

03:16 And so I'm really curious what we're gonna find.

03:19 Well, that is an exciting new chapter for you

03:21 and congratulations on 10 years.

03:23 Thanks, Abigail.

03:24 Thanks so much.

03:25 To get the latest updates,

03:27 follow @NASAJPL and @NASAMars on social media

03:31 or take a deeper dive on the mission websites

03:34 at mars.nasa.gov.

03:36 (dramatic music)

03:39 (explosion)

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