Curiosity Lands on Mars!

[anvi]

The NASA team successfully landed the Curiosity mission on Mars, and it has begun sending images from the surface.  It's my understanding that the rover will operate on the surface for many months, so we've got a lot of discoveries in the planetary geology of Mars to look forward to.  Nice footage here. 

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/ustream.html

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

What's the difference between this and previous rovers?

[RI]

What's the difference between this and previous rovers?

It's much bigger and much more powerful, plus it used a new riskier landing mechanism. Other than that, not much.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The main one is that is has the equipment aboard to test for the presence of organic compounds.

[anvi]

I think the testing and relaying equipment will last much longer than the equipment on the Viking landers too.  I'm really interested in this mission, because we have been speculating about conflicting data regarding the presence of microbes in Martian soil since the Viking mission in the mid-'70's.  So, now that Curiosity has made a successful landing, I'm hoping things go smoothly enough for us to reach a definitive conclusion about that.  The landing procedures and location for this present mission were particularly hazardous, and the high failure rate of rover landings on the Martian surface made it all the more worrisome.  But it's there and looking around now, so hopefully the good luck will continue.