Curiosity's First Scoopful of Mars

This video clip shows the first Martian material collected by the scoop on the robotic arm of NASA's Mars Curiosity rover, being vibrated inside the scoop after it was lifted from the ground on Oct. 7, 2012.

• Category

  Science & Technology

[deaultusername]

looks very much like a rendering. Why no sound, why can we not hear what the rover sounds like. Would not the sound of the material alone tell you so much about it or was a microphone too expensive.

[JPLnews]

Curiosity does not carry a microphone. Recording sound isn't one of the rover's science goals.

[PoTaTeRsX]

Looks like Curiousity brews a mean cup of coffee

[simplyivan16]

Damn, science, you boring.

[sabretooth1971]

nutella found on mars

[Downytide]

Would make wicked album thou, call "Mars Dubstep" by Curiosity, with the profit from the album NASA can send humans to Mars by next year!

[jb3000000]

First vibrator on mars. An achievment surely to be praised by those martian females.

[daveclark1961]

No it's not. It's a low framerate video.

[daveclark1961]

Every video is a series of still pictures, and so is this. It's just not a high framerate.

And the power of the onboard computer isn't relevant, it's the amount of data that needs to be sent back to Earth. High framerate video and color pictures take up a huge amount of data and require very long transmission times, and they don't add anything to the rover's science goals ... they just entertain people.

[Earlene Blosser]

I would give everything just to walk on the surface of another planet. Looking at the sun from different planet must be awesome.

[rinso1500]

here is my comment, in late 1960's and early 70's we sent men to the moon with computing power equal to a commodore 64. now we have super computers and cannot get 60 seconds of continuous video images from Mar. Why only artist's rendering and still pictures? I truly believe we have advanced in science but something is not quite right with the way we are spoon fed information.

[ruisugarushia]

You can't record any type of sound in Mars because there is not enough atmosphere and the sound travels through air which is only from 7 to 9 hPa compared to our 1013 hPa in the Earth

[firesword1125]

Get a real job....