Seeking Habitable Environments in Our Solar System: Curiosity on Mars

Abstract

Exploring space is one of humankind’s great endeavors, leading to technological innovation and discoveries that have the potential to answer the most fundamental human questions such as: Are We Alone in the Universe? NASA’s Mars Curiosity Rover landed on Mars in 2012. With its highly advanced suite of cameras and sensors, Mars Curiosity has revealed an ancient Mars that billions of years ago would have been a hospitable habitat for simple life. Although we haven’t yet discovered that life previously existed on Mars, Curiosity continues to provide a window into our neighboring planet’s history that motivates expanded exploration by future robotic spacecraft as well as eventual crewed missions.