Anyhow, Curiosity will be LANDING ON MARS very soon. 1:31 am, August 6th, Eastern Time. Happy birthday to me! (Really. That's my birthday. Best present ever.)
Those interested can watch, live, on NASA TV. I'll be watching. Haven't decided yet if I'll go to bed early and set an alarm to wake me up after 1am for the event, or if I'll just stay up that late. In any case, we won't know if she's landed properly for several minutes afterwards, because the signal takes a while to travel through space. We might not even find out tonight at all, depending on several factors.
I cannot stress enough how super exciting and super scary this is. We're dropping a mobile science laboratory the size of a car onto another planet. Whoa. Just let that sink into your brains for a second.
Best wishes to the MSL team, all of NASA, and of course, Curiosity herself. The world will be watching with fingers crossed.
What a great birthday present. Hope she succeeds and gives you some good data for your mss. :P
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