Science on Wheels: Curiosity Rover Quiz

Because Curiosity is the size of a small SUV (about 2,000 lbs), it was too heavy for airbags. NASA designed a "Sky Crane" maneuver where a hovering rocket platform lowered the rover to the surface on nylon tethers before flying away.

True. Curiosity was designed as a "Mars Science Laboratory." Its goal wasn't just to find water, but to find the chemical building blocks of life (like carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen) and energy sources that microbes could have used.

Gale Crater contains Mount Sharp, a 3-mile-high mountain. By climbing the mountain, Curiosity can read the "layers" of Martian history like pages in a book, seeing how the climate changed from wet to dry over billions of years.

Curiosity's SAM (Sample Analysis at Mars) instrument found sulfur, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and carbon. These are the "CHNOPS" elements that are essential for all known forms of life on Earth.

Unlike earlier rovers, Curiosity uses a nuclear battery that converts heat from decaying plutonium-238 into electricity. This allows it to work year-round, regardless of dust storms that would block solar power.

True. Curiosity photographed smooth, rounded pebbles that are too heavy to be moved by wind. Their shape and size indicate they were tumbled and transported by a fast-moving stream of liquid water billions of years ago.

The ChemCam instrument fires a laser at rocks up to 23 feet away. This creates a tiny spark of glowing plasma, which the rover's telescope analyzes to identify the minerals inside without even having to drive up to the rock.

The scale of Curiosity is much larger than earlier rovers. Being the size of an SUV allows it to carry 10 times the mass of scientific instruments compared to the Spirit or Opportunity rovers.

Curiosity's thin aluminum wheels have suffered significant wear and tear from sharp, jagged rocks. It also has to survive temperatures that drop to -130°F. Since it doesn't use solar panels, dust buildup is less of a threat to its power.

Curiosity has detected "puffs" of methane gas. On Earth, most methane is produced by living organisms (though it can be created geologically too). This discovery is exciting because it suggests Mars might still be "active" today.

True. Curiosity was the first rover with the ability to drill into rocks and deliver the powdered gray rock "dust" to its internal chemistry labs (SAM and CheMin) to see what minerals are hidden beneath the weathered red surface.

Because Earth is so far away, the rover sends most of its data to satellites orbiting Mars. These orbiters have much larger antennas and more power to beam the data across the millions of miles of space to the Deep Space Network on Earth.

Martian nights are incredibly cold. The rover uses "heaters" (both electric and from the nuclear power source) to keep its computers and instruments at a safe operating temperature, similar to a room on Earth.

Curiosity found that the ancient lake in Gale Crater had freshwater that was neither too acidic nor too salty. It had all the right ingredients for life. However, no evidence of actual fossils or complex organisms has been found yet.

Curiosity uses a six-wheel "rocker-bogie" suspension system. Each wheel has its own motor, and the two front and two rear wheels can steer, allowing the rover to turn in place (360 degrees).

False. Curiosity is very slow! Its top speed on flat hard ground is only about 1.5 inches per second (0.09 mph). It is designed for stability and safety, not speed, as it navigates the dangerous terrain of Gale Crater.

By stitching together many photos from the MAHLI camera on its robotic arm, engineers can see the entire rover. This helps them check for damage to the wheels, sensors, or body that might not be visible from other cameras.

The Mastcams are Curiosity's primary science cameras. They provide "true color" images (what a human would see) and can zoom in on distant features of Mount Sharp to help scientists decide where the rover should drive next.

The 7-foot-long arm acts like a human geologist. It can brush away dust, drill into rocks, and hold a magnifying glass (camera) up to the surface to see grains of sand and mineral crystals in high detail.

Curiosity's mission was originally supposed to last 2 years, but it has been so successful that it has been extended multiple times. It is still climbing the foothills of Mount Sharp, providing new data every day after more than a decade on Mars.