Curiosity rover: what Twitter made of Nasa’s Mars landing
Nasa’s latest rover – aptly named Curiosity – has landed safely on Mars. It’s beginning to send back photos of its new home, triggering an outbreak of awe and ropey humour on Twitter
- Nasa’s Curiosity rover touched down safely on the dusty surface of Mars on Monday (6 August), 254 days – and 154m miles – after it left Cape Canaveral. The soft landing was no mean achievement, given the 900kg object was travelling at 13,200 mph as it entered Mars’s atmosphere.
Here’s a nice video mash-up of the final stages of the voyage, featuring some understandably overjoyed Nasa scientists.
- Professor Brian Cox summed up the feelings of the scientific community after seeing these scenes.
- And this summed up the feelings of (most of) the rest of us.
- Before long, Curiosity began to beam back photos of its surroundings. Here’s the first.
- But some people are never happy. This picture soon started doing the rounds on Twitter and Tumblr, captioned: "Nasa just landed a rover on Mars, this is the very first picture. This JUST happened minutes ago."
- Oh no it didn’t (hat tip to museumofhoaxes.com for pointing that out.) The image is indeed of Mars, but the picture was taken in 2005.
The real first colour images can be seen here. They’re not quite as stunning, but still – they’re of Mars. What more do you want?
Mars rover Curiosity sends home first color photo
This color thumbnail image was obtained by NASA's Curiosity rover during its descent to the surface of Mars on August 5, 2012 and release...- And here’s a properly amazing panorama of the planet’s surface - and this was taken by Curiosity.
- When you look at images like this, you do begin to wonder about our priorities.
- One thing’s for sure: Twitter never misses an opportunity to get creative with Photoshop.
The images from Curiosity are starting to become slightly disturbing. http://pic.twitter.com/2019W956
Happens everywhere. Mars rover is photo bombed. http://pic.twitter.com/VpsKNfCO
- If cheap gags are your thing, read on…
An incredible view of the Milky Way seen from Mars. You might have to pass this on, Favorite it, or both! #curiosity http://pic.twitter.com/wYP2lwFj
