Why is curiosity important for space exploration?

NASA launched the Curiosity Rover on 26 November 2011 and it landed on Mars in August 5 2012. The Curiosity was charged with the mission to answer one question: Did Mars ever have the right environmental conditions to support small life forms called microbes? It is the largest and most advanced Exploration Rover to ever be sent to Mars and since then it’s made amazing discoveries.

Here are some of the incredible discoveries that the Curiosity Rover has made so far:

• Evidence of ancient water flows
  Curiosity found rocks believed to have been eroded by ancient waterflows. The layers of exposed bedrock reveal to scientists that there may have once been a stream.

• Curiosity has detected dangerous levels of radiation
  Exceeding NASA’s career limit for astronauts.

• Methane Mystery
  In September 2013, NASA noted that the Rover had not found a single trace of methane in the Martian atmosphere. However, since then it’s found that the Red Planet has background levels of Methane, that peak depending on what season it is.

• Ancient Mars could have held life
  Thanks to Curiosity scientists now know that Mars likely had the right chemistry to support living microbes.

Curious to find out more about the Curiosity Rover and its mission? Check out this awesome resource from NASA.

Join a mission to outer space

Sound’s exciting doesn’t it?

Well, are you ready to join us on our very own space mission? Discover the Exploration Station, built by the mysterious alien artist Chris Gilmour on an Exoplanet 2.5 light years from Earth.

The state-of-the-art extragalactic research station will have everything you need to research this new and strange planet. Surrounded by space books from DK Books, curious videos and roaming scientists, as a family you’ll be able to research questions like; what do we already know about outer space? What will we need to live on this planet? Are there moons and stars in the sky? Plus you can design and build your own additions to the Exploration Station.

Not only will you have the chance to add to the visionary research station, but you can also build a mini Exploration Rover, inspired by the Curiosity Rover. Using cardboard, crafts and elastic band-powered prolusion, you can design a prototype, then build and test it.

These activities develop an interest in engineering and exploration, by working as a team with family and new friends – drawing, inventing and making in preparation for the mission of a lifetime. You can bring innovation and creativity to the Exploration Station, who knows what we’ll discover by the end of the day!

To join the mission, get your tickets for Lab Live: Curiosity with OKIDO for this weekend, 18 & 19 May.