Curiosity Rover Report: We made it! Curiosity reaches Mount Sharp (Sept 11, 2014)

More science ahead! After 2 years and nearly 9 kilometers of driving, NASA’s Mars Curiosity has arrived at the base of Mount Sharp to begin a whole new phase of exploration.

[afshinrohani]

This video is scientifically interesting.

[RevYars]

Beautiful scientist presenter and also some gorgeous Mars imagery there.  Thank you!

[MarMelMauStria]

Thanks for the update! 0:52 like the mouse cursor in the center of the picture :P

[adrianjackson]

Retractable spikes may be good for the next Rover to manipulate different terrains

[isbemorph]

i was hoping for a report on Rovers wheels.

[troyadams]

I'm excited to see what it discovers.

[alliancesuxftw]

Are we expecting to see some nice 360 photos of the location? :)

[Taraalcar]

9km? Nice! How high up the mountain is it planning on going eventually?

[NicosMind]

I thought they took a different path because their wheels were breaking, and they wanted to go on the softer sand to add life to their wheels which weren't able to handle more solid ground???

[HiAdrian]

Nice, I hope Curiosity doesn't die on us anytime soon.

[EdwinNWalker]

It would be nice to have weekly updates.  It seems like the updates are every now and then.  Thanks

[InfiltrateIndustries]

Already there?
How I wish you had made this update a bit longer - 1:25 seems rather short for this event :/

[boberthim]

God bless you kid.
I would LOVE to have your job.

[sigrunvanhouten]

I must admit to having a change of mind on this question of life on Mars that has evolved as the data has evolved. I used to think life had at least at some point existed on Mars. I'm beginning to think it never has. Since the mid-seventies we've been doing active experiments on Mars to find life and the pattern I see is that we keep going deeper and deeper into the weeds on this question with no results. We've recently looked very closely at several meteorites which have structures that could have been created by biotic processes. But then we were reminded that these could also be geologic. Rocks from Norway and other places have shown this (hydrothermal processes). So, now the search has drilled down into the details of the carbonates richly distributed within the chasms bored (or melted?) into the rock. And apparently a study is in progress to see if these carbonates are of biotic or abiotic origin, but I've seen no results yet. I predict it will be abiotic or inconclusive.

If life undergoes selection pressures on Earth sufficient to profuse into every conceivable niche on Earth, including volcanoes and the control rods on nuclear reactors (yep!), even taking a ride to the moon and back on Apollo missions (vacuum!), why wouldn't this occur on Mars also? Why didn't Viking find gross evidence of life present at the time it landed? If it ever were on Mars, shouldn't it have evolved, propagated and profused all over Mars? Remember, bacteria also lives in Atacama where there is virtually no water. I realize selection pressure operates by necessity, but Mars has LOTS of necessity in that department. The "we're not looking in all the places" argument doesn't add up. Natural selection would seem to imply it must be almost everywhere and very much alive today.

_So, if life ever existed on Mars before, where is it now?_

If life ever existed on Mars, even if not now, we'd expect millions of tons of carbonate layers on the surface it left behind, or at least if not carbon-based some conspicuous ratio of elements saturating the surface that have no ready geologic explanation. And remember, Mars doesn't have continental turnover. And remember, on account of the same natural selection argument above, is it realistic to expect those remains wouldn't have spread all over Mars during its "prime" time a couple of billion years ago? It had millions and millions of years to grow and expand. Why are we looking in all these obscure places and ways for past life when evidence of past life should be an elephant in the living room?

_So, if life ever existed on Mars before, where are the remains?_

We've now photographed the crap out of the Martian surface. Yea, fossils are rare, but on Earth if you look around a little and know what you're doing, you can find many right at the surface. No, clear, unambiguous, n-axis symmetric fossils have been found on Mars in any of these photos.

_So, if life ever existed on Mars before, where are the fossils?_

If the carbonates on those meteorites are found to originate abiotically, I'm going to conclude that a sterile Mars is most likely the correct answer; in the sense that life has never been there (except possibly for some forward contamination from hardware sent there). If anyone can explain these paradoxical conclusions I'm interested.

[MattHumanPizza]

One can say she has 'stacks' of data.

[romaremo]

I'd like to know how the life of the battery is doing. How much more life do you think is left in it?

[alejandrosernag]

When NASA published the results of chemical studies? are already published or where I can find? Thanks!!! 

[CaptainNero]

Im excited looking at the layers of mount sharp in the provided images. What did we find in earths layers of sedement..? uhh huh...Hopefully there will be something in the rocks.

[mmarinmx]

It is my imagination or there is a blurr area on the left side at the middle on the image exaclty whre the lady points at 0:53 :(

Why present an immage was maniplated?

[Oshbotscom]

"Took an alternate route because it was more scientifically interesting"? More like took a short-cut because Curiositys' wheels are falling apart. I hope they get this problem sorted out for the next heavier rover.