Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking. Login or Take a Tour!
- Later today, at 10:30 p.m. West Coast time, NASA's Curiosity rover is scheduled to touch down on the surface of Mars. If it's successful, the landing will represent not just a step forward for Martian exploration; it will also represent progress for interplanetary navigation.
But ... if it's successful. People are calling Curiosity's impending landing "seven minutes of terror" for a reason: Though there are many reasons to hope that the landing will go smoothly -- more than 2.5 billion reasons, in fact -- there is also much potential for the touch-down to go spectacularly wrong.
Here's a guide to Curiosity's trip as it's gone so far and as it's expected (and hoped) to conclude.