NASA's Curiosity Rover Celebrates One Year On Mars

An anonymous reader writes "The Curiosity rover celebrates one year on Mars today. 'The 1-ton robot has achieved a great deal in its 12 months on Mars, discovering an ancient streambed and gathering enough evidence for mission scientists to declare that the planet could have supported microbial life billions of years ago. And more big finds could be in the offing, as Curiosity is now trekking toward its ultimate science destination: the foothills of a huge and mysterious mountain that preserves, in its many layers, a history of Mars' changing environmental conditions.'"

Puny Earthlings !

[mbone]

And your puny terrestrial years! Curiosity has some time (322 of your weak days, or a mere 313 of our superior Martian sols) before it reaches its first Martian birthday.

And, since it is now on Mars, that is clearly the birthday that counts.

Meanwhile....

[SYSS Mouse]

Opportunity River has been around for almost 10 (Earth) years there..

Re:Who can convince me it was worth it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Correction,
The NASA budget i said was for 2010.
2012's NASA budget was 17.770 billion, which is less than half of a percent of the federal budget.

Re:Who can convince me it was worth it?

[Anonymous Coward]

We spend more on Pizza as a nation and you're asking about priorities? Seriously, the Curiosity budget works out to about $1 per person per year in the U.S.

Re:time

[CrimsonAvenger]

Of course maybe it's such a small difference that I sound like an idiot...

relativistic effects of Mars' orbital speed on time passage there : 0.9999999965976668868826947934

relativistic effects of Earth's orbital speed on time passage here : 0.99999999506624037797369889211

Difference between the two : 1.531426508853249e-9

So, a bit less than one second difference every twenty years.

So yep...