NASA's Curiosity Rover on Mars Arrives at Mountain Destination

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has finally reached the base of Mt. Sharp, the 3-mile-high mound in the middle of Gale Crater.

The rover reached its destination after wandering in the Martian desert for about 25 months. The arrival of the rover at Mt. Sharp t marks the start of the Mars Science Laboratory rover's original mission: to read the mountain's clay-rich lower layers like pages in a history book. It is expected that the analysis of these layers could expose the presence of life-affable environments on the Red Planet. A project scientist and Caltech geologist John Grotzinger said, "We have finally arrived at the far frontier that we have sought for so long."The trip to Mt. Sharp was delayed for few months by a diversion the rover took to seem at a hopeful spot named Yellowknife Bay. Although it charge the team at Jet Propulsion Laboratory on half a year, the venture finally paid off, as the drilling of the rocks there exposed a smorgasbord of chemical elements that would have been appropriate for microbial life, if it ever survived.
"Now that the scientists know livable environments did survive on the Red Planet, part of the next step will be seeking those fastidious environments that have a most probability of protecting organic molecules," Grotzinger stated.
The rover is finishing in on a spot called as Pahrump Hills, a projection which was not kept by Nasa in its real itinerary. But this spot will now be the gateway to Mt. Sharp.