On Monday morning, a space rover from NASA, called
Curiosity, landed on Mars. This is only the second successful landing ever on
the Red Planet. And the other, a spacecraft from the Soviet Union in 1971, lost
contact pretty quickly after touchdown. The question is: could aliens have cut
that one off?
Yes, there could be aliens on Mars. Or at least, some kind
of life. Mars is so close and so similar to Earth that lots of people have
wondered about its potential as a futuristic home for humans. And if that’s a
possibility, you can be sure that Curiosity will find out. With the fanciest
laboratory equipment that has ever been sent to another planet, the car-sized
rover is set to explore Mars for at least two years. Why so long? Because NASA
wants to be extra-careful and extra-thorough on this mission. They’ve already
waited almost 3 years for this launch, since technical difficulties forced them
to miss the last line-up with Earth and Mars. And now that Curiosity is finally
on solid Martian ground, they don’t even want to take it for a drive ‘til
they’ve spent weeks checking it for boo-boos from the landing.
Pictures are already streaming in from Curiosity, giving us
clues as to what the Red Planet looks like. Stay tuned for more, stargazers! In
the meantime, tell us: Do you think there could be life on Mars?
BY CARRIE RUPPERT ON 8/7/2012 4:31:00 PM
POSTED IN In the News