Curiosity celebrates one year of landing on Mars

One year ago today, the Curiosity probe first landed on Mars, after launching in November of 2011 for an eight month journey. The Curiosity probe left Earth armed to the teeth with scientific instruments, several cameras, a laser, and a sassy sense of humor courtesy of a NASA social media team.

The problem landed after what was dubbed “seven minutes of terror” where the probe had to undergo a series of automated maneuvers, reports the Forbes. There was no room for error during the landing, because it takes radio signals 14 minutes to make a round trip from Earth to Mars. No course corrections from NASA were possible. But land it did, and in the year since it’s already taught NASA scientists a lot about the Red Planet. Those findings will help us learn more about our cosmic neighbor, and will hopefully pave the way to human exploration.


As NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a statement, ”Wheel tracks now, will lead to boot prints later.”


There are definitely a lot of wheel tracks. Curiosity has traveled over one mile since landing on Mars, and is currently making its way towards Mount Sharp. All the while, it’s using it’s scientific instruments to learn everything it can about the Red Planet. You can see a map of its path so far below