“好奇”號傳回火星地表的彩色照片

火星探測器“好奇”傳回火星地表的彩色照片（它發回的拼接照片，我沒有取來。若用原照片的外鏈地址，顯示的照片太寬。若壓縮尺寸，細節看不清。下面是那個照片的三副細節裁圖）。

“好奇”號降落在一個叫“Gale Crater”隕石坑內。

1，這樣的地貌和地地球上某些地區的地貌幾乎一樣。這紅色的塵土下是否有生命存在過？

2，這紅色的土壤是天文上的事件而產生的氧氣把鐵氧化了的結果，還是生物現象產生的氧氣所為呢？

3，當水在其中流淌的時間段內，生命是否孕育過？

以上的照片Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

這是“好奇”號周圍的地質環境的黑白照片。遠處起伏的山巒清晰可見。

4，那起伏的山巒和低洼處，是否可有生命在其周圍活動過？這是“好奇”號主要想知道的。

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

科學家們所以選這裡作“好奇”號的降落地點，原因是，它的主要使命是探測火星上現今可能存在的生命跡象或過去曾經存在過的生命遺蹟。火星上的軌道器已經探明這裡存在粘土層和硫酸鹽礦物。這表明這個低洼地過去曾是有過水存在的歷史。從理論上推測，這裡是可能存在生命概率很大的地方。

“好奇”號接下的任務是將會用機械手臂上工具對岩石和土壤鑽探，取樣，送入探測器的分析實驗室進行分析化驗，試圖發現是否有生命存在。

我們期待着它會有驚人的發現。下面是NASA網站上關於此事報道的全文。最後是上述照片的外鏈地址。

PASADENA, Calif. – The first images from Curiosity's color Mast Camera, or Mastcam, have been received by scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. The 130 low-resolution thumbnails, which were received Thursday morning, provide scientists and engineers of NASA's newest Mars rover their first color, horizon-to-horizon glimpse of Gale Crater.

"After a year in cold storage, where it endured the rigors of launch, the deep space cruise to Mars and everything that went on during landing, it is great to see our camera is working as planned," said Mike Malin, principal investigator of the Mastcam instrument from Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego. "As engaging as this color panorama is, it is important to note this is only one-eighth the potential resolution of images from this camera."

The Curiosity team also continued to downlink high-resolution black-and-white images from its Navigation Camera, or Navcam. These individual images have been stitched together to provide a high-resolution Navcam panorama, including a glimpse of the rover's deck. Evident on some portions of the deck are some small Martian pebbles.

"The latest Navcam images show us that the rocket engines on our descent stage kicked up some material from the surface of Mars, several pieces which ended up on our rover's deck," said Mike Watkins, mission manager for Curiosity from JPL. "These small pebbles we currently see are up to about 1 centimeter [0.4 inch] in size and should pose no problems for mission operations. It will be interesting to see how long our hitchhikers stick around."

Curiosity's color panorama of Gale Crater is online at: http://1.usa.gov/P7VsUw . Additional images from Curiosity are available at: http://1.usa.gov/MfiyD0 .

Mission engineers devoted part of their third Martian day, or "Sol 3," to checking the status of four of Curiosity's science instruments after their long trip. The rover's Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer, Chemistry and Mineralogy analyzer, Sample Analysis at Mars, and Dynamic of Albedo Neutrons instruments were each energized and went through a preliminary checkout. The team also performed a check on the rover's second flight computer.

Even before landing, the mission's science team began the process of creating a geological map of about 150 square miles (about 390 square kilometers) within Gale Crater that includes the landing area.

"It is important to understand the geological context around Curiosity," said Dawn Sumner of the University of California, Davis, a member of the Curiosity science team. "We want to choose a route to Mount Sharp that makes good progress toward the destination while allowing important science observations along the way."

The mapping project divided the area into 151 quadrangles of about one square mile (about 2.6 square kilometers) each. Curiosity landed in the quadrangle called Yellowknife. Yellowknife is the city in northern Canada that was the starting point for many of the great geological expeditions to map the oldest rocks in North America.

Curiosity carries 10 science instruments with a total mass 15 times as large as the science payloads on NASA's Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity. Some of the tools, such as a laser-firing instrument for checking rocks' elemental composition from a distance, are the first of their kind on Mars. Curiosity will use a drill and scoop, which are located at the end of its robotic arm, to gather soil and powdered samples of rock interiors, then sieve and parcel out these samples into the rover's analytical laboratory instruments.

To handle this science toolkit, Curiosity is twice as long and five times as heavy as Spirit or Opportunity. The Gale Crater landing site places the rover within driving distance of layers of the crater's interior mountain. Observations from orbit have identified clay and sulfate minerals in the lower layers, indicating a wet history.

The Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity mission is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

For more about NASA's Curiosity mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mars and http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/msl .

Follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at: http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity and http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity .

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Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

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Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech