I think we need a new poll on the Curiosity rover. I think "Successful landing" would come in last behind "Crashes into a trout at 1,000 miles per hour."

Curiousity will dig a little deeper into Mars ...

New rover could seek evidence of ancient Mars life just below surface, study says | Fox News

Here we go. Good luck NASA.

Last-minute guide to the Mars landing - Cosmic Log

Just a little too late at night to stay up for the pictures :(

SI

I'll be watching!

Definitely will be staying up for this tonight. Can get some stuff done while watching the streaming video. REALLY hope it works. The pictures and what we will learn will be fantastic.

Think I'll play a little Endless Space while I'm watching. :)

Getting close..

Where will this be broadcast?

NASA TV. If you don't have it on your TV provider, you can watch it in HD online at the following link. Coverage starts at 11:30 EDT. About 30 min away.

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

This shit is fun as hell to watch. http://eyes.nasa.gov/server/player/index.html?document=$SERVERURL/content/documents/msl/edl.xml

300 miles left..

Traveling at over 12,500 MPH currently. That would be one hell of a ride.

Watching the simulation data is kind of like riding along with it.. Wish I had a pair of glasses to really put me there.

There goes the heat shield..

Nailed the landing.

Holy crap, it landed!

Touchdown NASA!

I totally want to work for NASA.

Really excited to see first pics.

First images are coming across

Gotta say that went off beautifully. Congrats to all those people who have put in years of research and labor to make this huge step forward happen.

Hi res pics coming across now

That was just plain awesome. Glad I stuck around. Just amazing. Fucking Mars.

Thats probably it for tonight, odessy is moving past the landing zone and will lose contact.

I've never seen so many geeks so happy at teh same time in my entire life ;)

Thought you've been to Gencon? :)

On a side note, must be nice to have a job with a sense of accomplishment.

New hi-res pic that was transmitted a couple hours after landing.

WOO! Fuckin awesome!

I think I see a raptor.

Another really nice picture.



Picture from one of the orbiting spacecraft of the Curiousity craft as it descends.

Yup, definitely a raptor.

F'ing super cool pic of Curiosity from one of the orbiters.

The new rover has already discovered a Martian life form! It was a small mammal that was unfortunately crushed by the landing. The picture shows that Curiosity killed the cat.

Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
8m
Me & My Shadow... & Mount Sharp. My view of the 3-mile-high mountain in the middle of Mars' Gale crate

Is Curiosity tweeting?

Sure is!

First tweet from Curiosity: Dude, I don't know if you know this, but you NASA nerds landed me on a serious dump! Come on, the nearest Wawa is like... a MILLION miles away!

That's actually pretty cool.

Some pictures but nothing too exciting yet. There seems to be a dearth of info on what-when Curiousity will move and/or do experiments, soil samples etc.

'Impressive' Curiosity landing only 1.5 miles off, NASA says - CNN.com

I think it has been extremely exciting already. Am I incorrect or are these the first actual color images from the surface of Mars. I believe previous color photos were digitally added. That just blows my mind.

Here is where all pictures are dumped.

Mars Science Laboratory: Raw Images

Patience padawan, patience.

It takes time to get the backdrops changed, replace the first set dressers that had to be eliminated to maintain operational security.

Are you joking, or do you honestly believe this?

It blows my mind.. to think something could travel that far and just land on another planet and relay pictures like that, just seriously blows my mind.

Looks like some of the dirt roads around where I live.

Let's see, I repeated the wisecrack to my son & it gave me an opportunity to realize & lament the fact he'd never seen Capricorn One. At no point in the conversation however did the word "documentary" ever come up.

That said, there really isn't much that would surprise me either.

Bunch of rocks, but pretty neat!

Mars Science Laboratory: Recent Videos

Wow. Unbelievable. Those are some pretty glorious pics. Even though we have all grown up in an age where we always knew this kind of stuff was an inevitability, this is still just 100% completely awesome.

I was having fun last night outside last night around 11pm about how Curiousity is up there and with the meteor shower..

Love this shit and wish I could be a part of what astronomers do...

That's Mars.

This kind of thing always reignites my child-like sense of wonder about the universe. I wish I could live long enough to see us (read:the smart humans among us) figure everything out.

Or at least long enough to see us build an Enterprise-D. That would be sweet.