Video: Why Is Curiosity Looking for Organics?

By Nancy Atkinson - March 7, 2013 at 3:54 PM UTC | Astrobiology

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!

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com