Curiosity: Name and Objective

Name:Curiosity

NASA conducted at competition for the Nick Name of the Mars Science Laboratory. A NASA panel selected the name following a nationwide student contest that attracted more than 9,000 proposals via the Internet and mail which includes name suggestions from the Mars Science Laboratory project leaders and a non-binding public poll also were considered.

Winner of this competition was Clara Ma, a 12-year-old sixth-grade student at Sunflower Elementary school in Lenexa, Kan. Her Signature and name is also written on Curiosity before the launch.

Main Objective: 

Mars Science Laboratory mission is part of NASA's Mars Exploration Program, a long-term effort of robotic exploration of the red planet. Curiosity was designed to assess whether Mars ever had an environment able to support small life forms called microbes. In other words, its mission is to determine the planet's "habitability."

The rover will analyze samples scooped from the soil and drilled from rocks. The record of the planet's climate and geology is essentially "written in the rocks and soil" -- in their formation, structure, and chemical composition. The rover's onboard laboratory will study rocks, soils, and the local geologic setting in order to detect chemical building blocks of life (e.g., forms of carbon) on Mars and will assess what the martian environment was like in the past.