Scientists have found signs of water at Earth's closest neighbor, hinting some form of life might have existed there in the past, though it is now a dry planet with dust storms and extreme winters.
MSL is carrying a one-ton rover which NASA has named curiosity having enormous size of a car. It is also carrying a complex set of tools for the collection of rocks and drilling of soil. As of yesterday the Mars Science Laboratory was approximately 468,000 miles away from Mars, a little less than twice the distance of Earth from Moon. It was traveling at a speed of about 8,000mph(3,576 meters per second). There will be a gradual increase in speed to about 13,200 mph(,900 meters per second) by the time it reaches the top of the Martian atmosphere.
The landing of the nuclear-powered spacecraft is the boldest ever attempted, and involves penetrating Mars' atmosphere, slowing down with the help of a supersonic parachute and dropping down gently with tethers from a rocket-powered sky crane.
The Mars Science Laboratory began its journey to the Red Planet more than eight months ago when it launched from the Florida coast in late November 2011.
The landing site for the rover is a flat area known as Gale Crater, which lies near a mountain. Scientists hope the rover will be able to climb the mountain in the search for sediment layers that could be up to a billion years old.
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