Mars rover Curiosity marks first year anniversary

NASA’s rover Curiosity “sang” happy birthday to itself on the red planet.

07:07 07 August 2013

It has been one year since NASA’s rover Curiosity had landed on Mars. On August 5th, NASA engineers managed to coax a rendition of “Happy Birthday To You” out of the rover.

Florence Tan, the Lead electrical engineer of SAM (Soil Analysis at Mars), the rover’s onboard chemistry lab, said, as referred to in a report by The Independent: “Curiosity landed on Mars on August 5th, 2012. It was born on Mars that day, and so we consider that day as its birthday.”

After a year of landing at wide Gale Crater, the Curiosity has firmly established Mar’s past habitability potential.

Prof Sanjeev Gupta, a Curiosity mission scientist from Imperial College London, UK, told the BBC: "I think what Gale has shown us so far is that Mars is truly a good place to explore.”

"We've seen this diverse pattern of ancient environments, a tremendous richness - lakes lapping up on shorelines and rivers sloshing into these lakes.

"And it's not just surface water flow, either; we've seen sub-surface flow as well - water moving through the rocks.

"So, while the rocks are static, as geologists we see this dynamic picture of the landscape, and it's been really exciting."