Nasa releases game to celebrate Curiosity's four years on Mars
December 17, 2022
Four Earth years ago one of Nasa’s most famous rovers landed on Mars.
Curiosity is still working hard, now collecting its 17th sample, and Nasa has created a game to celebrate the rover’s fourth anniversary by letting fans collect their own.
The new game for phones and tablets called ‘Mars Rover’ lets players drive a rover through rough Martian terrain, challenging themselves to navigate and balance the rover while earning points along the way.
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The new game for phones and tablets called ‘Mars Rover’ lets players drive a rover through rough Martian terrain, challenging themselves to navigate and balance the rover while earning points along the way
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WHERE IS CURIOSITY NOW?
The rover has driven to position for drilling into a rock called ‘Marimba,’ to gather rock powder for on-board laboratory analysis.
The rover has now started a multi-month climb of a mudstone geological unit as it heads toward higher and progressively younger geological evidence on Mount Sharp, including some rock types that have not yet been explored.
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‘We’re excited about a new way for people on the go to engage with Curiosity’s current adventures on Mars and future exploration by Nasa’s Mars 2020 rover too,’ said Michelle Viotti, manager of Mars public engagement initiatives at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena.
‘Using social networks, the user can share the fun with friends.
The interest that is shared through gameplay also helps us open a door to deeper literacy in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.’
JPL collaborated with ‘Gamme’, a network for game-players, for development of the game, called Mars Rover.
To play the game, สล็อตฝาก1บาท users must download the ‘Gamee’ app and once it has been installed, search for Mars Rover.
To play the game, users must download the ‘Gamee’ app (left) and once it has been installed, search for Mars Rover (shown middle).
Then the game challenges users to navigate and balance the rover while earning points along the way
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Since Nasa‘s Mars rover, Curiosity, landed on the red planet in 2012, it has been zapping rocks using an on-board laser to analyse their composition.
But until now, the laser was only able to operate when controlled by humans.
Now, the rover is able to select rock targets to blast on its own, using the first autonomous target selection instrument of its kind.
Curiosity’s new software, called ‘Autonomous Exploration for Gathering Inreased Science (AEGIS), was previously used on Nasa’s Mars Exploration Rover, though for a different type of instrument.
To select a target, the software analyses images using criteria previously specified by scientists, such as identifying rocks based on their size or brightness.
The criteria can be changed depending on the rover’s surroundings and the scientific goals of the measurements.
A second mode uses images from ChemCam’s camera to pinpoint exactly where to point the laser at targets chosen in advance by scientists.
For example, scientists might select a crack in a rock, based on images received on Earth.
AEGIS then controls the laser sharpshooting.
