Happy Anniversary! Curiosity Rover Marks 1 (Martian) Year

NASA's Curiosity rover has now been exploring the Red Planet for a full Martian year.

Curiosity wraps up its 687th day on Mars today (June 24), NASA officials said, meaning the 1-ton robot has completed one lap around the sun on the Red Planet. (While Earth orbits the sun once every 365 days, Mars is farther away and thus takes considerably longer to do so.)

Curiosity touched down on the night of Aug. 5, 2012, kicking off a mission to determine if Mars has ever been capable of supporting microbial life. The six-wheeled rover quickly delivered, finding that an area near its landing site called Yellowknife Bay was indeed habitable billions of years ago. [Curiosity Celebrates a Martian Year (Video)]

The $2.5-billion mission, known officially as the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), has made other important discoveries during its time on the Martian surface, too. For example, Curiosity's measurements of radiation levels — made during its eight-month cruise through space and while on the planet's surface — suggest that the risk of radiation exposure is not a "showstopper" for manned Mars missions. The rover's data should should help researchers design the shielding astronauts will require on such missions, NASA officials said.


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