This short 60-second video explains organic molecules and what they can tell us about the history of Mars. It’s also a good segue to provide an update on how the Curiosity rover is doing following the computer problems we reported earlier this week.
Word is that the rover will resume its activities tonight. This is later than originally planned, as shortly after being recovered from safe mode back into active status following a memory issue with one of its on-board computers, engineers put Curiosity into sleep mode because of a rather large solar flare that was heading to Mars.
“Storm’s a-comin’!” the rover’s Twitter account announced. “There’s a solar storm heading for Mars. I’m going back to sleep to weather it out.”
But the CME has now passed and all appears to be well with the rover. Look for raw images to resume soon!