Unlock Mars
Curiosity is one of the missions in a series of explorations intended to unlock the history of Mars. Curiosity is designed for conducting an in-depth investigation of Mars' past or present ability to sustain microbial life.
In essence, the mission is to determine the planet's "habitability".
Curiosity will carry the biggest, most advanced suite of instruments for scientific studies ever sent to the martian surface. The rover will analyze dozens of samples scooped from the soil, drilled from rocks, and pulled from the atmosphere. The record of the planet's climate and geology is essentially "written in the rocks and soil" -- in their formation, structure and chemical composition.
The rover's onboard laboratory will study the samples and the local geologic setting in order to detect chemical building blocks of life (eg, forms of carbon) on Mars. It will assess what the martian environment was like in the past, addressing the fundamental question, "Was Mars ever a habitat for microbial life?"
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