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On 5 August 2017, 54.6 million kilometres from Earth, amongst the red dust and rocks, the familiar tune of Happy Birthday sang out on Mars as the Curiosity rover celebrated 5 years on the red planet. The Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument, usually occupied with soil analysis, has also been programmed to sing out birthday celebrations every year for Curiosity , arguably the loneliest birthday party in the Solar System.

Curiosity self-portrait

This self-portrait of NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover shows it at Namib Dune. This is where one of the rover’s activities was to scuff into the dune with a wheel and scoop samples of sand for laboratory analysis.

Mission to Mars

Our closest neighbour, Mars was a natural target for exploration on land. Its solid terrain means we can land on it, and it doesn’t have the extreme temperatures and weather of Mercury and Venus. If scientists wanted to drive on flat land, Mars was the only candidate.

Curiosity rover

NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover, a mobile robot for investigating Mars’ past or present ability to sustain microbial life.

Curiosity launched on 26 November 2011 and landed on Mars almost 9 months later on 5 August 2012. This mission to Mars was a continuation of the work of Pathfinder and the rover Sojourner and the twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity . The Pathfinder lander (later renamed the Carl Sagan Memorial Station) launched the small, wheeled rover Sojourner in the Mars Ares Vallis area. Its mission was to prove that “faster, better and cheaper” spacecraft were achievable, to show that it was possible to send scientific instruments to another planet with a simple system, cheaper than the previous Viking mission, and to demonstrate NASA’s commitment to low-cost planetary exploration by completing the mission on budget.

Five years later, the Curiosity rover landed on Mars with more advanced equipment and goals to determine the organic make-up and chemical building blocks on Mars and to understand the atmospheric evolution processes and surface radiation.

The name Curiosity was selected from a nationwide essay contest. Students from across the United States submitted entries to name the rover. Then 12-year-old Clara Ma from Kansas wrote in her winning essay:

Curiosity is such a powerful force . Without it, we wouldn’t be who we are today. Clara Ma

Scientific technology

On board, the rover is a collection of instruments for the analysis of the Mars environment. The Curiosity team surveys the surface using 17 cameras, looking for features of interest. Once a target is selected, the rover uses lasers to break apart or vaporise the rocks and soil and then look at the rock’s composition. This process helps to understand the make-up of Mars and is a search for life (checked for before vaporising the rocks). If the sample looks interesting, Curiosity will dig into the soil and send a powdered sample to the SAM instrument (the same one that sings Happy Birthday ). We already know that no flowing water exists on the surface on Mars, but potentially underneath the soil is frozen water remnants of riverbeds, lakes or craters. In an ongoing hunt for the first life outside of Earth, Curiosity is searching in the soil for microbes that would be present in water.

So far, Curiosity has helped scientists to understand the chemical composition of the Martian soil, showing that what may have been suitable for sustaining strong life is not. Curiosity has also shown us that the rocks and soil on Mars, when they interact with UV rays from the Sun, make for a chemically toxic combination. Curiosity has detected that Mars could have supported microbial life, discovered evidence of an ancient streambed and found the key chemical ingredients for life. Far from ruling out human life on Mars, Curiosity has helped scientists understand what will be required to overcome the environment, what the equipment will need to withstand and what those first brave astronauts will need to survive the cold, radiation and weather.

Curiosity was sent with a 2-year life expectancy, but after 5 years, it’s still running, not using the solar panels for power but residual radioactive decay. In 2012, its mission was extended indefinitely. It is expected to keep going until it can’t any longer. Many NASA space missions continue beyond the projected end date – Voyager is still going, and New Horizons is still sending data. If the instrument won’t disturb or contaminate an environment and it’s still delivering useful information, NASA will continue the mission.

Curiosity tracks

This image was taken on 11 April 2014, by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter . It shows NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover and tracks from its driving.

The rover appears bright blue and is near the largest butte in the lower left quadrant of the image, at about a 2 o’clock position relative to the butte.

The Mars 2020 mission

Curiosity has also informed the next NASA mission to Mars, named Mars 2020. This rover will be equipped with a drill to take core samples from rocks and store them in airtight tubes. These samples will then be transported to caching sites where they will be deposited under the Martian surface to protect them from UV radiation until future missions retrieve them for analysis.

Three sites of interest have already been shortlisted by scientists – Columbia Hills, Gusev, Jezero Crater and NE Syrtis. All of them have evidence of water, which could mean the presence of microbes.

The Mars 2020 mission goals are to determine whether life ever arose on Mars, characterise the climate of Mars, characterise the geology of Mars and prepare for human exploration. Mars 2020 will be launched in July/August 2020, and the proposed mission duration is at least 1 Mars year.

The Mars Curiosity rover discoveries and what it stands for continue to inform future exploration of Mars, long after its power reserves are depleted and it permanently parks on Mars.

In the words of Clara Ma:

We have discovered so much about the world, but still so little. We will never know everything there is to know, but with our burning curiosity, we have learned so much. Clara Ma

Mars InSight Mission

On Tuesday 28 November 2018 New Zealand time, the Curiousity Rover was joined by the InSight lander. The lander touched down on the Elysium Planitia, a still, flat region on Mars, where it’s set to study seismic waves and heat deep below the surface of the Red Planet for a planned two-year mission.

Nature of science

Engineering the technology used in scientific missions to gather data is just as important as the findings and interpretation the technology enables. Scientists and engineers working together within the science field create advances in technology that can often benefit people in everyday life.

Related content

These two articles, Curiosity rover lands on Mars and Updates from Mars give further details about the Curiosity rover mission and its initial findings.

These citizen science projects could also be used in an astronomy unit focused on the planet Mars:

• The Planet Four project wants help from citizen scientists to help explore the surface and weather of the Mars south polar region.
• Use the AI4Mars project to help scientists train Mars rovers how to classify Martian terrain.

How does a Kiwi kid go from dreaming about flight to working on the B-2 stealth bomber and the Mars exploration rovers? Dr Allan McInnes did, and this article talks about Allan’s interest in computers and programming and how he ended up designing the Mars space rover.

Useful links

You can follow Curiosity :

• Twitter: @MarsCuriosity
• Facebook: @MarsCuriosity
• Online: https://mars.nasa.gov/msl

Watch this short animated video that rolls Mars around to show all the major features of the Martian topography. It begins with a hemispherical view of Olympus Mons and Valles Marineris and then rolls around to reveal the Martian South Pole. While traversing Northward, it passes Hellas Basin and ends up looking down on the Martian North Pole.

Acknowledgement

This article has been written by Stardome Observatory and Planetarium , which has been operating since 1967. It is a place of exploration, research and sharing of knowledge and hosts New Zealand’s first and still largest planetarium theatre. Stardome Observatory and Planetarium celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2017.

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NASA's Amazing Mars Rover Curiosity Landing: Best Moments

Groundbreaking Landing

On Aug. 5 PDT 2012 (Aug. 6 EDT), NASA's Curiosity rover landed on the surface of Mars. At 1 ton and $2.5 billion, the rover is the biggest, most expensive and most ambitious probe ever sent to another planet. Curiosity is slated for a two-year mission to study whether Mars is or ever was habitable to life. Here are the highlights from Curiosity's landing:

1. Clara Ma

High School student Clara Ma spoke on NASA TV about her prize-winning 2009 essay to name the rover. "'Curiosity' was the first thing that popped into my head," Ma said of her inspiration for the name. "It's really human nature to always wonder what's out there. This experience has been absolutely life-changing."

2. Side-By-Side Wheels

Peter Theisinger, Curiosity project manager, compares the size of Curiosity's huge wheels to those of the previous rovers sent to Mars, Spirit and Opportunity (medium-size) and Sojourner (smallest).

3. Good Luck Peanuts

Mission managers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., share jars of peanuts during the countdown toward landing. According to laboratory lore, six Ranger moon missions failed to achieve their goals until one mission manager brought a jar of peanuts to his shift managing Ranger 7, which finally succeeded. Since then, peanuts are always present during critical moments, scientists said.

In the moments before a signal arrived communicating the successful landing, scientists at JPL paced tensely and looked on with baited breath as readings came through from Curiosity. Because of the time it takes signals to travel from Mars to Earth, mission managers didn't learn the rover had landed until about 14 minutes after landing occurred.

5. Moment of Truth

The moment of truth came at 10:32 p.m. PDT (1:32 a.m. EDT on Monday), when the signal came that Curiosity had landed safely on Mars. The dozens of gathered scientists at JPL exclaimed, clapped, cried and hugged each other to celebrate the feat.

6. First Photos

Just minutes after the signal came that Curiosity had landed safely, the rover sent back its first photos from the Martian surface. These pictures, tiny and grainy at first, were nonetheless received with cheers of joy throughout Mission Control.

7. Marble Handover

After the landing, JPL mission managers officially marked the handover from the mission's cruise team to its surface team. The cruise team had started a tradition of placing a marble into a jar for each successful day of the rover's journey toward Mars. Now, the surface team will continue the practice by starting the count over, placing a marble in a new jar for each day of Curiosity's surface activities.

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Clara Moskowitz is a science and space writer who joined the Space.com team in 2008 and served as Assistant Managing Editor from 2011 to 2013. Clara has a bachelor's degree in astronomy and physics from Wesleyan University, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She covers everything from astronomy to human spaceflight and once aced a NASTAR suborbital spaceflight training program for space missions. Clara is currently Associate Editor of Scientific American. To see her latest project is, follow Clara on Twitter.

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One Year on Mars: The Curiosity Rover

• Alan Taylor
• August 5, 2013

Later tonight NASA will mark the one year anniversary of the safe landing of its Curiosity Rover on the surface of Mars. In the days (or sols, as they are called on Mars) since its complex sky-crane touchdown, Curiosity has made discoveries that show the existence of favorable conditions for microbial life billions of years ago, including evidence of an ancient streambed. It's also made significant measurements of the dangerous levels of radioactivity, which will help designers prepare for future manned missions to Mars. By the numbers: Curiosity has sent us more than 190 gigabits of data, returned more than 72,000 images, and fired more than 75,000 laser shots to investigate the composition of targets. The rover is now making its way to the base of Mount Sharp, where it will investigate lower layers of a mountain that rises three miles from the floor of Gale Crater. See also How Curiosity Became an Astronaut .

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On Mars, a self-portrait of NASA's rover Curiosity, combining dozens of exposures taken by the rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) during the 177th Martian day, or sol, in this February 3, 2013 image. The rover was positioned at a patch of flat outcrop called "John Klein," which was selected as the site for the first rock-drilling activities by Curiosity. #

Preparation for one phase of testing of the Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity. The testing during March 2011 in a 25-foot-diameter space-simulation chamber was designed to put the rover through operational sequences in environmental conditions similar to what it will experience on the surface of Mars. The technician in the picture is using a wand to map the solar simulation intensities at different locations in the chamber just prior to the start of the testing. The space-simulation chamber is at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. #

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Curiosity rover lifts off from Launch Complex 41at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on November 26, 2011. #

An orbiting probe sent to Mars previously by NASA, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), looked down on August 5, 2012 and managed to catch a glimpse of the newest member of NASA's robotic Mars team as it parachuted to the surface. At upper left, you can see two white dots, the upper one is the the parachute, the lower, the spacecraft and backshell. #

Flight director for the Mars rover Curiosity, Bobak Ferdowsi, who cuts his hair differently for each mission, works inside the Spaceflight Operations Facility for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover at JPL in Pasadena, California, on August 5, 2012. #

This color full-resolution image showing the heat shield of NASA's Curiosity rover was obtained during descent to the surface of Mars on August 5, 2012. The image was obtained by the Mars Descent Imager instrument known as MARDI and shows the 15-foot (4.5-meter) diameter heat shield when had fallen about 50 feet (16 meters) from the spacecraft. This image shows the inside surface of the heat shield, with its protective multi-layered insulation. The bright patches are calibration targets for MARDI. #

An image taken by NASA's Mars science rover Curiosity shows what lies ahead for the rover -- its main science target, Mount Sharp, in this photo released by NASA on August 6, 2012. The rover's shadow can be seen in the foreground, and the dark bands beyond are dunes. Rising up in the distance is Mount Sharp at a height of about 3.4 miles, taller than Mt. Whitney in California. The image has been linearized to remove the distorted appearance that results from its fisheye lens. #

The landing site of NASA's newest Mars rover, seen on August 17, 2012. The descent stage crash site (left), backshell and parachute (bottom), and Curiosity Rover (right). This image was acquired by the HiRISE instrument aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. #

On Mars, NASA's Curiosity rover images itself -- this image shows the rover's Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS), with the Martian landscape in the background. The image was taken by Curiosity's Mast Camera on the 32nd Martian day, or sol, of operations on the surface (September 7, 2012). APXS can be seen in the middle of the picture. This image let researchers know that the APXS instrument had not become caked with dust during Curiosity's dusty landing. Scientists enhanced the color in this version to show the Martian scene as it would appear under the lighting conditions we have on Earth, which helps in analyzing the terrain. #

This mosaic of images from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity shows Mount Sharp in a white-balanced color adjustment that makes the sky look overly blue but shows the terrain as if under Earth-like lighting. White-balancing helps scientists recognize rock materials based on their experience looking at rocks on Earth. The Martian sky would look more of a butterscotch color to the human eye. Mount Sharp, also called Aeolis Mons, is a layered mound in the center of Mars' Gale Crater, rising more than 3 miles (5 kilometers) above the crater floor, where Curiosity has been working since the rover's landing in August 2012. #

Curiosity's instrument-laden arm at work, imaged by the front left Hazcam on Sol 322, July 3, 2013. #

A blink pair of images taken before and after Curiosity performed a "mini drill" test on a Martian rock shows changes resulting from that activity. The resulting hole and surrounding pile of drill cuttings are not the only changes. The images were taken by the Mast Camera instrument on Curiosity. The diameter of the hole created by the drill is 0.63 inch (1.6 centimeters). The before image was taken on the 178th Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity's mission, February 4, 2013. #

People look at the 'Mars Window' a projection of images taken one of NASA's Mars rovers at the Visions of the Universe exhibition at The National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, London, on June 5, 2013. #

This pair of images shows a "bite mark" where NASA's Curiosity rover scooped up some Martian soil (left), and the scoop carrying soil. The first scoop sample was taken from the "Rocknest" patch of dust and sand on October 7, 2012, the 61st sol, or Martian day, of operations. #

The Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity used its laser to examine side-by-side points in a target patch of soil, leaving the marks apparent in this before-and-after comparison. The two images were taken by ChemCam's Remote Micro-Imager from a distance of about 11.5 feet (3.5 meters). The diameter of the circular field of view is about 3.1 inches (7.9 centimeters). Researchers used ChemCam to study this soil target, named "Beechey," during the 19th Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity's mission, August 25, 2012. #

Part of a panorama taken by the Mast Camera on the NASA Mars rover Curiosity while the rover was working at a site called "Rocknest" in October and November 2012. #

Curiosity making nighttime images of the drill hole at Cumberland, lighting the scene with its white LEDs. This image was taken by the Mastcam on Sol 292, June 6, 2013. #

A closeup of a rock formation viewed by Curiosity's ChemCam Remote Micro-Imager on Sol 323, July 4, 2013. #

This image from the Mars Hand Lens Imager camera on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity shows a small bright object on the ground beside the rover at the "Rocknest" site. The object is just below the center of this image. It is about half an inch (1.3 centimeters) long. The rover team has assessed this object as debris from the spacecraft, possibly from the events of landing on Mars. The image was taken during the mission's 65th Martian day, or sol October 11, 2012. #

A view of the United States flag medallion on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity that was taken by the rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), on September 19, 2012. The flag is one of four "mobility logos" placed on the rover's mobility rocker arms. The circular medallion of the flag is made of anodized aluminum and measures 2.68 inches (68 millimeters) in diameter. The medallion was affixed with bolts to locations on the rocker arms where flight hardware was once considered, but ultimately deemed unnecessary. #

Looking into the Martian sky, Curiosity captured an image showing a close pairing of its two tiny moons, Phobos (left) and Deimos, on Sol 351, August 1, 2013. #

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity appears as a bluish dot near the lower right corner of this enhanced-color view from the HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The rover's tracks are visible extending from the landing site, "Bradbury Landing," in the left half of the scene. Two bright, relatively blue spots surrounded by darker patches are where the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft's landing jets cleared away reddish surface dust at the landing site. North is toward the top. For scale, the two parallel lines of the wheel tracks are about 10 feet (3 meters) apart. HiRISE shot this image on June 27, 2013, when Curiosity was at an outcrop called "Shaler" in the "Glenelg" area of Gale Crater. Subsequently the rover drove away from Glenelg toward the southwest. #

The lower slopes of Mount Sharp appear at the top of this picture taken by the right Navigation Camera (Navcam) on Curiosity, at the end of a drive of about 135 feet (41 meters) during the 329th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's work on Mars in this July 9, 2013 NASA image. The turret of tools at the end of Curiosity's robotic arm is in the foreground, with the rover's rock-sampling drill in the lower left corner of the image. #

Using an onboard focusing process, the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) aboard NASA's Mars rover Curiosity created this closeup image of a Martian rock by merging two to eight images previously taken by the MAHLI, located on the turret at the end of the rover's robotic arm, on July 4, 2013, Sol 324. #

On sol 349, July 30, 2013, Curiosity looks behind, capturing its tracks on the surface of Mars. #

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NASA's Curiosity rover has delivered some cool findings from its trips across the red planet.

Six Cool Takeaways From NASA's Mars Rover Curiosity Discoveries

Some big discoveries are being made on the red planet.

NASA's Curiosity rover, which has been on Mars for almost a year and a half now, just delivered its largest and most important downlink so far of findings, discoveries, and conclusions. (Also see video: "Mission to Mars." )

While the six papers released by the journal Science report on different aspects of Mars and do it from different scientific perspectives, together they present the beginnings of a new understanding of the red planet, especially in its early epochs, three to four billion years ago.

Early Mars, it has become increasingly apparent, was in many important ways similar to Earth. (See also " Did Life on Earth Come From Mars? ")

"If you put together all that we're learning about Gale Crater and Mars, you really begin to chip away the rock and the sculpture inside emerges," said Pan Conrad , an astrobiologist with NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and a co-author on several of the papers.

For Hungry Minds

As described in the six Science papers, that hidden but slowly materializing landscape looks something like this:

1. Early Mars was habitable, perhaps for a long time.

After concluding that rivers and streams once flowed into Gale Crater, the Curiosity team has now reported that a lake existed there as well. That surface water, as well as groundwater that likely went down hundreds of meters, possessed all that was needed to support microbial life.

The period when Gale Crater was warmer, wetter, and habitable was broadly between 3.5 and 4 billion or more years ago. That period is when life on Earth is understood to have arisen.

Was Mars once home to primitive extraterrestrial life? Curiosity can't and won't make that determination, but its discoveries have made the possibility of Martian life significantly more plausible.

2. Water once flowed on many parts of Mars.

And that water was there at times and in forms that scientists didn't believe to be possible not long ago.

One of the major achievements of Curiosity so far has been to "ground-truth" observations made in recent years by the satellites orbiting the planet. Those instruments found strong hints that Mars had a watery past, and at Gale Crater they were found to be on target.

As a result, the mission has given greater credibility to the view that thousands of additional fossil formations of what appear to be ancient streams, channels, deltas, and lakes likely are just what they appeared to be.

3. "Follow the carbon" has been vindicated.

The search for Martian carbon-based organic compounds—one of the major goals of the Curiosity mission—has been and will continue to be complicated and trying.

While as many as six different organic compounds have been identified so far by the miniature chemistry lab called Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM), their origin remain unclear.

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"There's no doubt that SAM has identified organics, but we can't say with confidence yet that they are Martian in origin," said Douglas Ming of NASA's Johnson Space Center, and author of one of the six Curiosity papers in Science.

There are at least two sources of the confounding results: The presence on Mars of a chlorine-based compound that, when heated in the SAM oven with any organic material, largely destroys the compounds. And the leak into the SAM ovens of an organic solvent brought to Mars as part of a wet chemistry experiment.

The search for Martian organics is nonetheless making progress. With each collection of Martian sand or rock, the number of organics found and their concentration has increased—suggesting that different samples of Martian material are leading to different results. If the organics were all contaminants from Earth, those concentrations would likely be more steady.

"SAM is probably the most complex and important instrument ever brought to another planet," Ming said. "Inevitably, it has taken time to figure out how best to work with it."

4. Mars gets pounded by radiation.

Galactic cosmic rays and solar eruptions bombard Mars, and their high-energy particles break the bonds that allow organisms to survive. The Radiation Assessment Detector on Curiosity has made the first measurements ever of radiation on the surface of Mars, and the results are sobering.

In another Science paper, RAD principal investigator Donald Hassler reports that the radiation would almost certainly be fatal within a few million years to any microbial life on the surface or less than several meters deep.

The RAD team used as their model the terrestrial bacteria Deinococcus radiodurans , which is capable of withstanding enormous doses of radiation, to make that assessment.

Notwithstanding the high levels of radiation, Hassler reported that life could theoretically still survive on Mars today under special circumstances. If a bacteria similar to D. radiodurans appeared when early Mars was wetter, warmer, and had a more protective atmosphere, he wrote, it could have survived over the epochs through long periods of dormancy.

5. Mars radiation also damages normal chemistry.

Many on the Curiosity team point to radiation damage of all carbon chemistry on Mars as a major reason why it has been so difficult to identify organics on the surface.

That effort, however, may have gotten a significant boost from one of the most unexpected developments to come out of the mission so far―a method to date how long surfaces have been exposed to the sky on Mars.

Using measurements of radioactive decay also employed on Earth, Kenneth Farley of the California Institute of Technology reports that the surface of Yellowknife Bay has been exposed for some 80 million years.

The discovery points to a method for finding places for the rover to drill where there has been less chemistry-damaging radiation exposure.

Essentially, Farley said, the team has to look for cliffs or overhangs being undercut by the surface wind―as happened in Yellowknife Bay―and where radiation would be blocked by the rocks above. "If we find that kind of formation," he said, "drill there."

6. Detours sometimes turn out to be interesting.

The Curiosity rover was scheduled to head for the scientifically alluring Mount Sharp in the center of Gale Crater soon after landing. More than 480 days into the mission, the rover is still months away from its prime destination.

The detour to Yellowknife Bay is the main reason why, and it has turned out to be a gold mine of data. But now the rover is on what is called the "rapid transit route" to three-mile-high Mount Sharp, driving most of the time and passing many potentially interesting sites.

Having already found and analyzed the first potentially habitable environment ever discovered on Mars, the Curiosity team will be looking for more. And with their increased knowledge about which potential drill sites are likely to have been protected from radiation, the search for Martian organics will go into high gear as the rover approaches the target-rich Mount Sharp.

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Virginia Middle School Student Earns Honor of Naming NASA's Next Mars Rover

NASA chose seventh-grader from Virginia as winner of the agency's "Name the Rover" essay contest. Alexander Mather's entry for "Perseverance" was voted tops among 28,000 entries.

NASA's next Mars rover has a new name - Perseverance.

The name was announced Thursday by Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate, during a celebration at Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke, Virginia. Zurbuchen was at the school to congratulate seventh grader Alexander Mather, who submitted the winning entry to the agency's " Name the Rover " essay contest, which received 28,000 entries fromK-12 students from every U.S. state and territory.

NASA has chosen a name for its next Mars rover: Perseverance. The name was announced March 5, 2020, by Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington during a celebration at Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke, Virginia. Zurbuchen was on hand at the school to congratulate Alexander Mather, who submitted the winning entry to the agency's "Name the Rover" essay contest, which received 28,000 entrants from K-12 students from every U.S. state and territory.

"Alex's entry captured the spirit of exploration," said Zurbuchen. "Like every exploration mission before, our rover is going to face challenges, and it's going to make amazing discoveries. It's already surmounted many obstacles to get us to the point where we are today - processing for launch. Alex and his classmates are the Artemis Generation, and they're going to be taking the next steps into space that lead to Mars. That inspiring work will always require perseverance. We can't wait to see that nameplate on Mars."

Seventh-grader Alexander Mather of Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke, Virginia, submitted the winning entry in the agency's "Name the Rover" essay contest, making the case to name the Mars 2020 rover "Perseverance." Credit: Joseph Rebello Full image and caption

Perseverance is the latest in a long line of Red Planet rovers to be named by school-age children, from Sojourner in 1997 to the Spirit and Opportunity rovers, which landed on Mars in 2004, to Curiosity, which has been exploring Mars since 2012. In each case, the name was selected following a nationwide contest.

Members of JPL's assembly, test and launch operations team for NASA's Perseverance mission show appreciation for their newly named rover. The image was taken on March 4, 2020, at a payload processing facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Full image and caption

The contest that resulted in Alex's winning entry of Perseverance began Aug. 28, 2019. Nearly 4,700 volunteer judges - educators, professionals and space enthusiasts from around the country - reviewed submissions to help narrow the pool down to 155 semifinalists . Once that group was whittled down to nine finalists , the public had five days to weigh in on their favorites, logging more than 770,000 votes online, with the results submitted to NASA for consideration. The nine finalists also talked with a panel of experts, including Lori Glaze , director of NASA's Planetary Science Division; NASA astronaut Jessica Watkins ; rover driver Nick Wiltsie at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California; and Clara Ma , who, as a sixth-grade student in 2009, named Curiosity.

This image of the nameplate secured to the arm of NASA's Mars Perseverance rover was taken at a payload servicing facility at Kennedy Space Center soon after being attached on March 4, 2020. The laser-etched plate serves as a rock and debris shield that will protect a flexible electrical cable. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Full image and caption

Up until two years ago, Mather was more interested in video games than space. That all changed in the summer of 2018, when he visited Space Camp in Alabama. From his first glimpse of a Saturn V - the rocket that launched the Apollo astronauts to the Moon half a century ago - Mather became a bona fide space enthusiast, checking NASA.gov daily, consuming astronaut autobiographies and even 3D-printing flyable model rockets. When the call went out for students to propose a name for NASA's new Mars rover, Mather knew he wanted to contribute.

"This was a chance to help the agency that put humans on the Moon and will soon do it again," said Mather. "This Mars rover will help pave the way for human presence there, and I wanted to try and help in any way I could. Refusal of the challenge was not an option."

NASA's next Mars rover has a new name: Perseverance. After sorting through more than 28,000 submissions from K-12 students from every U.S. state and territory, one name was chosen. Alexander Mather, a 13-year-old student from Virginia who submitted the winning name, explains why he chose Perseverance as the name of NASA's next robotic scientist to visit the Red Planet.

Along with forever being associated with the mission, Mather will also receive an invitation to travel with his family to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida to witness the rover begin its journey when it launches this summer. While Mather has received NASA's grand prize in this competition, NASA also is acknowledging the valuable contributions of the semifinalists whose entries were among the top ones considered.

Lori Glaze, director of NASA's Planetary Science Division, looks on as Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, congratulates Alexander Mather on March 5, 2020, during a celebration at Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke, Virginia. The seventh grader had the honor of naming the agency's next Mars rover after submitting the winning entry to the agency's "Name the Rover" essay contest, which received 28,000 entrants from K-12 students from every U.S. state and territory. Credit: NASA Full image and caption

"They came so far, and their expressive submissions helped make this naming contest the biggest and best in NASA history," said Glaze, who also attended the event Thursday. "So, we decided to send them a little farther - 314 million miles farther. All 155 semifinalists' proposed rover names and essays have been stenciled onto a silicon chip with lines of text smaller than one-thousandth the width of a human hair and will be flown to Mars aboard the rover."

NASA's Perseverance rover is a robotic scientist weighing just under 2,300 pounds (1,043 kilograms). Managed for the agency by JPL, the rover's astrobiology mission includes searching for signs of past microbial life. It also will characterize the planet's climate and geology, and collect samples of Martian rocks and dust for a future Mars Sample Return mission to Earth while paving the way for human exploration of the Red Planet.

"When word went out during the naming event here at JPL, I took a moment to look around the auditorium," said John McNamee, project manager of the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mission at JPL. "I saw all these dedicated men and women who for years have invested the full measure of their intellect and stamina into the most technologically advanced rover mission in history - and I saw a lot of smiling faces and high-fives. Perseverance? You bet, that is a worthy name that we can be proud of as the first leg of a sample return campaign."

Sending a rover to the Red Planet is more than just 3...2...1... Liftoff! ?? It takes 100s of people and years of hard work to get a spacecraft from Earth to Mars. So when NASA's Perseverance rover touches down on the Martian surface, it will be because of the talented NASA minds that helped to make it happen.

Perseverance currently is undergoing final assembly and checkout at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It's targeted to land at Mars' Jezero Crater a little after 3:40 p.m. EST (12:40 p.m. PST) Feb. 18, 2021.

The rover naming contest partnership was part of a Space Act Agreement in educational and public outreach efforts between NASA, Battelle of Columbus, Ohio, and Future Engineers of Burbank, California. Amazon Web Services is an additional prize provider for the Mars 2020 naming contest and will provide Alex and his family a trip to see the launch.

Mars 2020 is part of a larger program that includes missions to the Moon as a way to prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet. Charged with landing the first woman and the next man on the Moon by 2024, NASA will establish a sustained human presence on and around the Moon by 2028 through NASA's Artemis program .

For more information about the mission, go to:

https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/

Follow the Perseverance Mars rover's official accounts and get answers to your questions about the mission at:

https://twitter.com/NASAPersevere

https://facebook.com/NASAPersevere

For more about NASA's Moon to Mars plans, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/topics/moon-to-mars

News Media Contact

Grey Hautaluoma / Alana Johnson

NASA Headquarters, Washington

202-358-0668 / 202-358-1501

[email protected] / [email protected]

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-393-9011

[email protected]

Essays About Curiosity: Top 5 Examples and 10 Prompts

Are you writing essays about curiosity? Then, read our guide of helpful essay examples and writing prompts.

Curiosity refers to the strong desire and active interest to learn something. It could start with a burning question that leads to more questions. This series of questioning can evolve into a pursuit that paves the way for discoveries. Curiosity can change how we perceive life and our world. While everyone is inherently curious, how we use our curiosity, for good or bad, shows who we are as people.

Check out our essay examples and topic prompts for your curiosity essay , and stay curious till the end. And when your essay is complete, check out our best essay checkers and take the slog out of proofreading.

1. Curiosity: Why It Matters, Why We Lose It, And How To Get It Back by Christy Geiger

2. did curiosity really kill the cat by mario livio, 3.  why curiosity, diversity, and inclusion are the secrets to successful business transformation by beatriz sanz saiz, 4. the five dimensions of curiosity by todd b. kashdan et. al, 5. curiosity: we’re studying the brain to help you harness it by ashvanti valji and matthias gruber, 1. how has curiosity helped you in life, 2. the benefits of curiosity, 3. how does curiosity lead to scientific discoveries, 4. encouraging curiosity in the classroom, 5. diverse vs. specific curiosity, 6. can curiosity be practiced, 7. curiosity in early civilization, 8. curious animals: what are they thinking, 9. the curiosity rover, 10. negative effects of curiosity.

“…[A]s an adult, we can reach a learning plateau. We feel good to get to a point of understanding and knowledge, but begin to lose our curiosity. We find it easier to live as the expert who knows than the student who grows.”

Adulthood can have a negative impact on our levels of wonder and curiosity. Geiger believes it’s time to regain our childlike curiosity as we move to a tech-driven industrial world where constant innovation and adoption of technologies are required. You might also be interested in these essays about critical thinking.

“Curiosity is the best remedy for fear. What I mean by that is that often we are afraid of the unknown, of those things we know very little about. Becoming curious about them, and making an effort to learn more, usually acts to relieve that fear.”

Who would’ve thought an essay could be weaved out from a common expression of curiosity? This curiosity essay finds that the saying “curiosity killed the cat” started quite differently than we know it today. Its meaning now evolves to echo parts of history when conventional and extremist ideologies would silence inquisitive minds to avoid being challenged and overturned.

“To be a leader in a context of superfluid markets, where everything is connected, an organization needs to constantly explore which are the new “needs,“ which technologies exist, how they can be maximized and where they can be used to innovate boldly to create new experiences, goods and services.”

Curiosity will drive businesses to survive and thrive in this digital age. But, they also need to seek assistance from diversity and an inclusive organization. With these two, businesses can stimulate new thinking and perspectives that can feed into the curiosity of the organization on the ways it can reach its goals and be the market’s next disruption.

“Rather than regard curiosity as a single trait, we can now break it down into five distinct dimensions. Instead of asking, ‘How curious are you?’ we can ask, ‘How are you curious?’”

Kashdan builds on existing curiosity research to identify five dimensions of curiosity : joyous exploration, deprivation sensitivity, stress tolerance, social curiosity, and thrill-seeking. Once you’ve assessed the right curiosity type for you, it might do wonders in catalyzing your curiosity into progress and development outcomes for your goals and well-being.

“It might seem obvious that if you are curious about something, you pay more attention to it, making it easier to remember later – but the effects of curiosity on memory are more complex than this.”

The essay presents new research on how a type of curiosity aiming to bridge information gaps connects with brain functions associated with enhanced learning. As far as education is concerned, the discovery strongly supports the need to create an environment to encourage students to ask questions rather than just give children a set learning program to consume.

10 Writing Prompts For Essays About Curiosity

Narrate an instance in your life when curious questions led to positive findings and experiences that helped you in life. Whether it was acing an exam, learning a new language, or other aspects of everyday life. Elaborate on how this encouraged you to be more interested and passionate about learning. See here our storytelling guide to help you better narrate your story. 

Research shows that curiosity can stimulate positive emotions. Many research studies outline the other benefits of curiosity to our health, relationships, happiness, and cognitive abilities. Gather more studies and data to elaborate on these advantages. To create an engaging piece of writing, share your experience on how curiosity has influenced your outlook on life. 

Albert Einstein is renowned worldwide as a famous theoretical physicist. Throughout his research, he used curious thinking and openmindedness to write his theoretical papers, changing the world as we know it. Curiosity is an essential attribute of scientists, as they can look for solutions to problems from a whole new angle. For this essay, look a the role of curiosity in the scientific process. How does a curious mindset benefit scientific discoveries? Conduct thorough research and use real-life examples to show your findings and answer this question.

School classrooms can be the playground of a student’s imagination and curiosity. In your essay, write about how your school and teachers encourage students to ask questions. Next, elaborate on how the learning prompts promote curiosity. For example, some teachers tell students that it is okay to fail sometimes. This assurance helps students think with new perspectives and solutions without the fear of failure.

When researching the different kinds of curiosity, you will find two categories- diverse and specific curiosity. Look into the different attributes of these curiosity types, and identify which one, in your opinion, is the better type of curiosity to foster. For an interesting argumentative essay, you can research which kind of curiosity you have and discuss whether you have a better or worse approach to curious thinking. Pull facts from online research to support your argument and include personal anecdotes to engage your readers.

Curiosity is an inherent human trait. We are all curious. But like any trait, we can practice being curious to improve our thinking. In this writing prompt, provide your readers with strategies that enhance curiosity. For example, meditation can help stimulate more curious thoughts. 

In early civilization, people answered many of life’s questions with religion. How did humanity shift from heavily relying on gods to believing in science? What part does curiosity play in this shift? Try piquing your curious mind and answer these questions in your essay for an exciting piece of writing. 

If animals solely relied on their basic instincts and functions, there is a high chance they would not survive in our world. According to Primatologist Richard Bryne in his paper Animal Curiosity , some animals can demonstrate curious behaviors that lead to new learning and survival skills. For this writing prompt, peer into curiosity in the animal kingdom and cite animals known to have high intelligence. Is curiosity at the foundation of their high IQs? Discuss this question in your essay.

This essay prompt is about the car-sized Curiosity Rover of NASA. The rover was designed to navigate the Gale crater on Mars and collect rock and soil samples for analysis. In your essay, research and write about why it was named “Curiosity” and its significant contributions to the Mars exploration mission.

Curiosity can have negative undertones from the expression “curiosity killed the cat.” Get to the heart of the matter and look through existing literature on the adverse outcomes of curiosity. One example to cite could be this study which concluded that one kind of curiosity is associated with errors, confusion, lack of humility, and vulnerability to fake news and so-called pseudo-profound bullshits. 

Curious to learn more about effective writing? Check out our guide on how to write an argumentative essay .  If writing an essay sounds like a lot of work, read our guide on how to write a five-paragraph essay .

Yna Lim is a communications specialist currently focused on policy advocacy. In her eight years of writing, she has been exposed to a variety of topics, including cryptocurrency, web hosting, agriculture, marketing, intellectual property, data privacy and international trade. A former journalist in one of the top business papers in the Philippines, Yna is currently pursuing her master's degree in economics and business.

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Who named the Curiosity Mars rover?

The Curiosity Mars rover was named by an 11 year old girl in Lenexa, Kansas, USA. Her name is Clara Ma and below is her inspiring story.

On Aug. 5 at 10:31 p.m. PST, a rover named Curiosity touched down safely on the surface of Mars, and I was lucky enough to have a front-row seat.

My name is Clara, and when I was in 6th grade, I won the essay contest NASA held to name its next Mars rover. The essay I wrote was not even 250 words long, but somehow it was enough to change my life.

I still remember that chilly December day, sitting in science class. I’d finished a worksheet early and decided to get a TIME for Kids magazine off of Mrs. Estevez’s bookshelf. It was the 2008 Invention Issue, but that wasn’t the only thing that caught my eye. In the magazine, there was an article about a girl who named the Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity.

The article also talked about the essay contest NASA was holding to name its next Mars rover. Before I even knew anything else about it, a single word flooded my 11-year-old mind: Curiosity.

I couldn’t wait for the bell to ring so I could get started on my essay. That afternoon, I raced home from the bus stop, sat down at the computer, and typed until my fingers ached. It turns out I was just in time. A few days later, and the contest would have closed.

Five months later, shortly after I had turned 12, I was watching a National Geographic special on mammoths when the phone rang. My mom answered, and immediately, a wide smile spread across her face.

When she told me that I had won, I was happier than I could ever remember being. I screamed and ran up and down the stairs and all around the house. I completely forgot about the mammoths and did not even remember to turn off the TV until it was really late.

Curiosity is such an important part of who I am. I have always been fascinated by the stars, the planets, the sky and the universe. I remember as a little girl, my grandmother and I would sit together in the backyard for hours. She’d tell me stories and point out constellations.

Here in the heart of the country, my grandmother would say, there were no bright city lights to compete with the brilliance of the stars. There was just the chirping of the cicadas and the soft summer breeze.

My grandmother lived in China, thousands of miles away from my home in Kansas. I loved the stars because they kept us together even when we were apart. They were always there, yet there was so much I didn’t know about them. That’s what I love so much about space. No matter how much we learn, it will always possess a certain degree of mystery.

In the past, space exploration may have been a competition to see who got somewhere first or the fastest. But now, it is one of the few things that bring people together. Science is a language that needs no translation. It doesn’t matter where you’re from or what you look like — you just have to have a thirst for knowledge and a passion for learning in order to succeed.

People often ask me why we go to faraway places like Mars. Why do we explore? My answer to that is simple: because we can. Because we’re curious. Because we as human beings do not just stay holed up in one place. We are constantly wondering and trying to find out what’s over the hill and beyond the horizon.

The Curiosity rover is more than just a robot. It is more than just a titanium body and aluminum wheels. Curiosity represents the hard work, passion, love and commitment of thousands of people from all over the world who were brought together by science.

Science is so awesome. It is breathtaking and mind-blowing, intertwining and unifying; and sometimes, it’s just a little bit crazy. The discoveries we make about our world are incredibly humbling. They move us forward and have the potential to benefit all of mankind.

This December it will be four years of my life that have been tied to Curiosity in some way. I’ve met so many amazing people through this experience, from scientists to engineers to administrators to volunteers. Their dedication and fervor inspire me immensely. My journey with Curiosity and the MSL mission team has shaped the person that I am today, as well as the person I would one day like to become.

I am deeply grateful to everyone who made it possible for me to have this amazing adventure.

And to you, I hope your curiosity takes you far.

By Clara Ma

Her winning essay:

Curiosity is an everlasting flame that burns in everyone’s mind. It makes me get out of bed in the morning and wonder what surprises life will throw at me that day. Curiosity is such a powerful force. Without it, we wouldn’t be who we are today. When I was younger, I wondered, ‘Why is the sky blue?’, ‘Why do the stars twinkle?’, ‘Why am I me?’, and I still do. I had so many questions, and America is the place where I want to find my answers. Curiosity is the passion that drives us through our everyday lives. We have become explorers and scientists with our need to ask questions and to wonder. Sure, there are many risks and dangers, but despite that, we still continue to wonder and dream and create and hope. We have discovered so much about the world, but still so little. We will never know everything there is to know, but with our burning curiosity, we have learned so much.

Clara Ma Photos:

More readings….

– More about Curiosity rover at Wikipedia – Story source: http://mashable.com/2012/11/16/clara-ma-curiosity-rover/ – Clara’s winning essay at NASA

Very inspiring, especially to kids.

Cool. NASA needs to name a rover “SpaceTrek.” Good for You!

Good for you. Many young and older people today have lost the gift of curiosity therefore, our community our country our world every day is plagued by crime. Hope others can be inspired by your life changing story. Best wishes.

Wow .. that was inspiring. I needed that push today 🙂

You did great girl…! I think we should all be curious enough to learn more about our world. Nice Story!

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The Demon and the Mars Rover: An Essay on Curiosity

• First Online: 19 March 2024

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• Alfred Kracher 16  

Part of the book series: Issues in Science and Religion: Publications of the European Society for the Study of Science and Theology ((ESSSAT,volume 8))

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Being curious is something that we take for granted. We attribute curiosity not just to ourselves and other people, but often to animals as well. This suggests that it has a deep evolutionary history. Whereas animal curiosity is specialized, during the evolution of our own generalist species multiple inherited elements merged into a comprehensive, general curiosity with a wide range of interests – social, environmental, artistic, technical, etc. Consequently, there are positive and negative aspects to this evolutionary inheritance, as there are to all human faculties. The assumption that we can tell a priori which is which has led to an unwarranted bifurcation, according to which curiosity is either a vice or a virtue. Once understanding of curiosity turned from a focus on the individual person toward the social significance of knowledge, movements began to channel individual curiosity toward objects of public interest. This can be seen on the example of museums, which developed from ‘curiosity cabinets’ into institutions of participatory education and scientific research. At the same time the ambivalent character of curiosity also became more obvious, as for example in the voyages of discovery and dangerous aspects of technology. Our current situation is one of increased opportunities and capabilities. These will inevitably be explored in a spirit of curiosity, but it will be important to keep in mind that curiosity is ambivalent and to employ it wisely.

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Curiosity was launched in November 2011, the slightly heavier but otherwise very similar Perseverance in July 2020. At about 1 ton these are the largest NASA Mars rovers, and both are still active as of late 2022. The 2020 mission also carried a Mars helicopter drone named Ingenuity .

Most historians of science believe this to be a legend, since the prediction is considered beyond the knowledge available at Thales’ time. This does not affect the way the story is used here.

A review of physical and theological theories on this topic is presented and discussed in the chapter on eschatology in Drees ( 1990 : 117–154).

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Kracher, A. (2024). The Demon and the Mars Rover: An Essay on Curiosity. In: Runehov, A., Fuller, M. (eds) Science, Religion, the Humanities and Hope. Issues in Science and Religion: Publications of the European Society for the Study of Science and Theology, vol 8. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-52292-5_9

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NASA's new Mars rover gets a name — Percy, for short

First came Sojourner. Then Spirit and Opportunity. Curiosity followed. And now there’s Perseverance.

NASA unveiled the name for the next Mars rover on Thursday, the culmination of the agency’s “Name the Rover” essay contests that kicked off last August.

The winning name was sent in by Alexander Mather, a seventh grade student at Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke, Virginia.

"Alex’s entry captured the spirit of exploration,” Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, said in a statement . “Like every exploration mission before, our rover is going to face challenges, and it’s going to make amazing discoveries. It’s already surmounted many obstacles to get us to the point where we are today – processing for launch.”

The rocket that will carry Perseverance is slated to launch to Mars this summer from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The 2,300-pound rover is subsequently expected to land at Jezero Crater on the Red Planet on Feb. 18, 2021.

The rover is designed to search for signs of past microbial life on Mars and will also study the planet’s climate and geology. The mission involves collecting Martian rocks and dust for a separate future expedition that aims to return these samples to Earth.

Zurbuchen said the upcoming rover mission is a crucial part of the agency’s Artemis Program , which aims to return astronauts to the moon by 2024, before journeying beyond to Mars.

“Alex and his classmates are the Artemis Generation, and they’re going to be taking the next steps into space that lead to Mars,” he said in the statement. “That inspiring work will always require perseverance. We can’t wait to see that nameplate on Mars.”

NASA’s naming contest attracted more than 28,000 entries from students in kindergarten through 12th grade from every U.S. state and territory, according to the agency. Nearly 4,700 volunteer judges that included educators and space enthusiasts around the country helped select 155 semifinalists and then nine finalists. The winning entry was then selected through an online public poll that recorded 770,000 votes over the course of five days.

Mather said his participation was a way to help NASA in its bid to return astronauts to the lunar surface.

"This Mars rover will help pave the way for human presence there, and I wanted to try and help in any way I could,” Mather said in a statement. “Refusal of the challenge was not an option."

NASA said Mather and his family will be invited to Florida to witness the rover’s launch this summer.

The Perseverance rover joins a rich history of NASA spacecraft named by school-age children. The Sojourner rover, which landed on Mars in 1997, the twin Spirit and Opportunity rovers, which landed on the Red Planet in 2004, and Curiosity , which touched its wheels down on Mars in 2012, were all named after nationwide contests.

Denise Chow is a reporter for NBC News Science focused on general science and climate change.

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The Unique Burial of a Child of Early Scythian Time at the Cemetery of Saryg-Bulun (Tuva)

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Pages:  379-406

In 1988, the Tuvan Archaeological Expedition (led by M. E. Kilunovskaya and V. A. Semenov) discovered a unique burial of the early Iron Age at Saryg-Bulun in Central Tuva. There are two burial mounds of the Aldy-Bel culture dated by 7th century BC. Within the barrows, which adjoined one another, forming a figure-of-eight, there were discovered 7 burials, from which a representative collection of artifacts was recovered. Burial 5 was the most unique, it was found in a coffin made of a larch trunk, with a tightly closed lid. Due to the preservative properties of larch and lack of air access, the coffin contained a well-preserved mummy of a child with an accompanying set of grave goods. The interred individual retained the skin on his face and had a leather headdress painted with red pigment and a coat, sewn from jerboa fur. The coat was belted with a leather belt with bronze ornaments and buckles. Besides that, a leather quiver with arrows with the shafts decorated with painted ornaments, fully preserved battle pick and a bow were buried in the coffin. Unexpectedly, the full-genomic analysis, showed that the individual was female. This fact opens a new aspect in the study of the social history of the Scythian society and perhaps brings us back to the myth of the Amazons, discussed by Herodotus. Of course, this discovery is unique in its preservation for the Scythian culture of Tuva and requires careful study and conservation.

Keywords: Tuva, Early Iron Age, early Scythian period, Aldy-Bel culture, barrow, burial in the coffin, mummy, full genome sequencing, aDNA

Information about authors: Marina Kilunovskaya (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation). Candidate of Historical Sciences. Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Dvortsovaya Emb., 18, Saint Petersburg, 191186, Russian Federation E-mail: [email protected] Vladimir Semenov (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation). Candidate of Historical Sciences. Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Dvortsovaya Emb., 18, Saint Petersburg, 191186, Russian Federation E-mail: [email protected] Varvara Busova  (Moscow, Russian Federation).  (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation). Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences.  Dvortsovaya Emb., 18, Saint Petersburg, 191186, Russian Federation E-mail:  [email protected] Kharis Mustafin  (Moscow, Russian Federation). Candidate of Technical Sciences. Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.  Institutsky Lane, 9, Dolgoprudny, 141701, Moscow Oblast, Russian Federation E-mail:  [email protected] Irina Alborova  (Moscow, Russian Federation). Candidate of Biological Sciences. Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.  Institutsky Lane, 9, Dolgoprudny, 141701, Moscow Oblast, Russian Federation E-mail:  [email protected] Alina Matzvai  (Moscow, Russian Federation). Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.  Institutsky Lane, 9, Dolgoprudny, 141701, Moscow Oblast, Russian Federation E-mail:  [email protected]

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NASA’s Curiosity Rover in Profile

About the size of a small SUV, NASA's Curiosity rover is well equipped for a tour of Gale Crater on Mars. This impressive rover has six-wheel drive and the ability to turn in place a full 360 degrees, as well as the agility to climb steep hills. During a nearly two-year prime mission after landing on Mars, the rover will investigate whether Gale Crater ever offered conditions favorable for microbial life, including the chemical ingredients for life.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

More information about Curiosity is online at: http://www.nasa.gov/msl or http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl .

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Gagarin Cup Preview: Atlant vs. Salavat Yulaev

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Gagarin cup (khl) finals:  atlant moscow oblast vs. salavat yulaev ufa.

Much like the Elitserien Finals, we have a bit of an offense vs. defense match-up in this league Final.  While Ufa let their star top line of Alexander Radulov, Patrick Thoresen and Igor Grigorenko loose on the KHL's Western Conference, Mytischi played a more conservative style, relying on veterans such as former NHLers Jan Bulis, Oleg Petrov, and Jaroslav Obsut.  Just reaching the Finals is a testament to Atlant's disciplined style of play, as they had to knock off much more high profile teams from Yaroslavl and St. Petersburg to do so.  But while they did finish 8th in the league in points, they haven't seen the likes of Ufa, who finished 2nd. 

This series will be a challenge for the underdog, because unlike some of the other KHL teams, Ufa's top players are generally younger and in their prime.  Only Proshkin amongst regular blueliners is over 30, with the work being shared by Kirill Koltsov (28), Andrei Kuteikin (26), Miroslav Blatak (28), Maxim Kondratiev (28) and Dmitri Kalinin (30).  Oleg Tverdovsky hasn't played a lot in the playoffs to date.  Up front, while led by a fairly young top line (24-27), Ufa does have a lot of veterans in support roles:  Vyacheslav Kozlov , Viktor Kozlov , Vladimir Antipov, Sergei Zinovyev and Petr Schastlivy are all over 30.  In fact, the names of all their forwards are familiar to international and NHL fans:  Robert Nilsson , Alexander Svitov, Oleg Saprykin and Jakub Klepis round out the group, all former NHL players.

For Atlant, their veteran roster, with only one of their top six D under the age of 30 (and no top forwards under 30, either), this might be their one shot at a championship.  The team has never won either a Russian Superleague title or the Gagarin Cup, and for players like former NHLer Oleg Petrov, this is probably the last shot at the KHL's top prize.  The team got three extra days rest by winning their Conference Final in six games, and they probably needed to use it.  Atlant does have younger regulars on their roster, but they generally only play a few shifts per game, if that. 

The low event style of game for Atlant probably suits them well, but I don't know how they can manage to keep up against Ufa's speed, skill, and depth.  There is no advantage to be seen in goal, with Erik Ersberg and Konstantin Barulin posting almost identical numbers, and even in terms of recent playoff experience Ufa has them beat.  Luckily for Atlant, Ufa isn't that far away from the Moscow region, so travel shouldn't play a major role. 

I'm predicting that Ufa, winners of the last Superleague title back in 2008, will become the second team to win the Gagarin Cup, and will prevail in five games.  They have a seriously well built team that would honestly compete in the NHL.  They represent the potential of the league, while Atlant represents closer to the reality, as a team full of players who played themselves out of the NHL. 

• Atlant @ Ufa, Friday Apr 8 (3:00 PM CET/10:00 PM EST)
• Atlant @ Ufa, Sunday Apr 10 (1:00 PM CET/8:00 AM EST)
• Ufa @ Atlant, Tuesday Apr 12 (5:30 PM CET/12:30 PM EST)
• Ufa @ Atlant, Thursday Apr 14 (5:30 PM CET/12:30 PM EST)

Games 5-7 are as yet unscheduled, but every second day is the KHL standard, so expect Game 5 to be on Saturday, like an early start. 

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Savvino-storozhevsky monastery and museum.

Zvenigorod's most famous sight is the Savvino-Storozhevsky Monastery, which was founded in 1398 by the monk Savva from the Troitse-Sergieva Lavra, at the invitation and with the support of Prince Yury Dmitrievich of Zvenigorod. Savva was later canonised as St Sabbas (Savva) of Storozhev. The monastery late flourished under the reign of Tsar Alexis, who chose the monastery as his family church and often went on pilgrimage there and made lots of donations to it. Most of the monastery’s buildings date from this time. The monastery is heavily fortified with thick walls and six towers, the most impressive of which is the Krasny Tower which also serves as the eastern entrance. The monastery was closed in 1918 and only reopened in 1995. In 1998 Patriarch Alexius II took part in a service to return the relics of St Sabbas to the monastery. Today the monastery has the status of a stauropegic monastery, which is second in status to a lavra. In addition to being a working monastery, it also holds the Zvenigorod Historical, Architectural and Art Museum.

Belfry and Neighbouring Churches

Located near the main entrance is the monastery's belfry which is perhaps the calling card of the monastery due to its uniqueness. It was built in the 1650s and the St Sergius of Radonezh’s Church was opened on the middle tier in the mid-17th century, although it was originally dedicated to the Trinity. The belfry's 35-tonne Great Bladgovestny Bell fell in 1941 and was only restored and returned in 2003. Attached to the belfry is a large refectory and the Transfiguration Church, both of which were built on the orders of Tsar Alexis in the 1650s.  

To the left of the belfry is another, smaller, refectory which is attached to the Trinity Gate-Church, which was also constructed in the 1650s on the orders of Tsar Alexis who made it his own family church. The church is elaborately decorated with colourful trims and underneath the archway is a beautiful 19th century fresco.

Nativity of Virgin Mary Cathedral

The Nativity of Virgin Mary Cathedral is the oldest building in the monastery and among the oldest buildings in the Moscow Region. It was built between 1404 and 1405 during the lifetime of St Sabbas and using the funds of Prince Yury of Zvenigorod. The white-stone cathedral is a standard four-pillar design with a single golden dome. After the death of St Sabbas he was interred in the cathedral and a new altar dedicated to him was added.

Under the reign of Tsar Alexis the cathedral was decorated with frescoes by Stepan Ryazanets, some of which remain today. Tsar Alexis also presented the cathedral with a five-tier iconostasis, the top row of icons have been preserved.

Tsaritsa's Chambers

The Nativity of Virgin Mary Cathedral is located between the Tsaritsa's Chambers of the left and the Palace of Tsar Alexis on the right. The Tsaritsa's Chambers were built in the mid-17th century for the wife of Tsar Alexey - Tsaritsa Maria Ilinichna Miloskavskaya. The design of the building is influenced by the ancient Russian architectural style. Is prettier than the Tsar's chambers opposite, being red in colour with elaborately decorated window frames and entrance.

At present the Tsaritsa's Chambers houses the Zvenigorod Historical, Architectural and Art Museum. Among its displays is an accurate recreation of the interior of a noble lady's chambers including furniture, decorations and a decorated tiled oven, and an exhibition on the history of Zvenigorod and the monastery.

Palace of Tsar Alexis

The Palace of Tsar Alexis was built in the 1650s and is now one of the best surviving examples of non-religious architecture of that era. It was built especially for Tsar Alexis who often visited the monastery on religious pilgrimages. Its most striking feature is its pretty row of nine chimney spouts which resemble towers.

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