13 years ago today, the Mars Science Laboratory launched from Earth carrying the Curiosity Rover with the objectives including the investigation of Mars’ habitability, studying its climate and geology, and collecting data for a human mission to Mars. Curiosity is about twice as long and five times as heavy as previous Martian rovers Spirit and Opportunity, and carries over ten times the mass of scientific instruments. READ what it’s discovered over a 10-year career… (2011)

In an article on the five most important discoveries made by Curiosity’s decade of exploring Gale Crater and Mount Sharp, NASA program scientists agree that the detection of organic molecules with Curiosity’s Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument suite is one of the biggest.

They also note the range of research do

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