Curiosity [Updated!]

[Update II] SUCCESS! Cyn and I watched on NASA TV last night.  Gratifyingly, the cable news channels also had fairly extensive coverage.

Curiosity landed at 10:32 p.m. Aug. 5, PDT, (1:32 a.m. EDT Aug. 6) near the foot of a mountain three miles tall and 96 miles in diameter inside Gale Crater. During a nearly two-year prime mission, the rover will investigate whether the region ever offered conditions favorable for microbial life.

More here.

[Update]  Check out this great post on How to Watch the Mars Curiosity Rover.

There's much awesomeness afoot on Mars this weekend.  Tonight, in fact.

Or, early Monday morning (for those of us in the central and eastern time zones), to be exact.  NASA's Mars Curiosity rover is scheduled to set down.  If you haven't heard of Curiosity, here's the deal: it's a rover about the size of a MINI Cooper that's scheduled to set down via a "sky crane."  Take a look at the JPL/NASA web site here.

Here's the NASA video on how Curiosity is going to make its descent, titled "Seven Minutes of Terror":

INVISIBLE SUN

INVISIBLE SUN, by David Macinnis Gill (Greenwillow, April 2012)(ages 14+).  Former Regulators, now outlaws, Durango and Vienne are on a quest to retrieve data about Durango's past and the still-percolating plots his father left behind.  But the mission goes awry when Vienne is captured by agents of the insurgent mastermind Mr. Lyme. 

Can Durango get her back or is he doomed to lost both her and all of Mars?

INVISIBLE SUN is a riveting and action-packed companion to BLACK HOLE SUN, revisiting a Mars that is red in tooth and claw.  With sardonic wit and intricate plotting, Gill brings a dystopian world to life.  Readers will eagerly await the conclusion to the trilogy.     

BLACK HOLE SUN

BLACK HOLE SUN, by David Macinnis Gill (Greenwillow, Sept. 2010)(12+). For seventeen-year-old (in earth years) mercenary chief Durango, things keep getting worse. Once a member of an elite military corps, now he's just trying to get by.

It was one thing to attempt (for hire, of course) to thwart the bizarre kidnapping of the children of a noblewoman, but now he's taken a job protecting a group of reclusive miners from humanoid cannibals in the antipodes of an anarchic Mars. But the miners are harboring a secret, and even the cannibals are not quite what they seem. Can Durango and his group hold it together, overcome their past, protect the miners, and still get paid?

Plot is well-wrought, fast-paced, with an intriguing back-story; Durango, his AI implant Mimi, and Vienne (Durango's number two) are intense, sarcastic, and sometimes brutal in a society whose law has deteriorated into "kill or be killed." In sum, in BLACK HOLE SUN, Gill offers an exciting, action-packed read on a Mars that is red in tooth and claw.

MIKE STELLAR: NERVES OF STEEL

MIKE STELLAR: NERVES OF STEEL, by K.A. Holt (Random House 2009)(ages 8+). Some time in the future, Mike Stellar gets the unwelcome news that his family is moving to Mars. Tomorrow. On only the second Mars mission, after the first failed (and which his parents might've been responsible for). About the only good part is that he'll be leaving his hated teacher, Mrs. Halebopp, behind.

Once on board the Sojourner, Mike meets an odd girl, Larc, his parents' weird assistant, aka, Mr. Honey Bear, and discovers that Mrs. Halebopp is there, too! Throw in a conspiracy to sabotage the mission, and Mike will truly need nerves of steel to get to the bottom of it all.

MIKE STELLAR is a clever and fun middle grade adventure, both funny and action-packed. Altogether, an excellent debut novel.