We didn’t meet Martians in 2012, but we did get exponentially closer to the red planet. Curiosity is a one-ton, car-sized rover that was launched by NASA in November 2011. It made its Mars landing on August 6, 2012 in a gorgeously nerve-racking way. After plunging into Mars’ atmosphere at 13,000 mph, the spacecraft had to deploy a massive supersonic parachute to slow its dive to 200 mph, then fire rockets to drop under 2 mph. There were seven minutes of terror when a rocket-powered sky crane lowered Curiosity to the Mars surface with cables, before zooming off and crashing a safe distance away from the primary landing site. Today, the rover is still operational, sending beautiful images and providing scientists with interstellar insight. 

 

Like any good story, Curiosity was only the beginning. A new rover is set to join Curiosity on the red planet in 2021.