Life's Building Blocks on Mars
NASA's Curiosity rover is hard at work on Mars, and it just made a giant discovery! While exploring a spot called Gale Crater, the rover used its drill to peek inside ancient rocks. Inside, it found special molecules called "organics." These molecules are like the Lego bricks for life! While this doesn't mean scientists have found Martians yet, it does prove that long ago, Mars had the right ingredients to support life. Curiosity even found 7 types of these molecules that we have never seen on the Red Planet before! Learn more!
Wee Ones
Scientists found 7 brand new types of molecules on Mars! If we start counting at 1, can you count all the way forward to 7?
Little Kids
Scientists found 21 organic molecules in one rock sample. 7 of these were brand new types! How many of the molecules were types that scientists had seen on Mars before?
Big Kids
Scientists have identified 508 different molecules in Martian rocks so far. If they identify 12 more during this mission, how many total molecules will they have found?
The Sky's the Limit
The Curiosity rover sends data back to Earth from millions of kilometres away. If a radio signal travels at 300,000 kilometres per second, and it takes 600 seconds (10 minutes) for the signal to reach Earth, how many million kilometres away is Mars?