This is not a comet, it's Curiosity on its way to Mars
This, I guarantee, is a view of NASA's Curiosity rover embarking on its 250 day trip to Mars that you may not have seen before. It's an extraordinary piece of time-lapse footage taken from Australia not long after launch from Cape Canaveral. It shows a glowing plume from the Centaur stage after a burn over the Indian Ocean - the Centaur rocket has propelled Curiosity first into a low-Earth orbit and then into an escape trajectory towards Mars. You can also see the sunlit spacecraft itself, a tiny speck gliding across the star-fields of the Milky Way as it heads for interplanetary space.
Bon voyage Curiosity!
With thanks to the Sir Thomas Brisbane Planetarium
The views expressed are those of the author(s) and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)
Caleb A. Scharf is director of astrobiology at Columbia University. He is author and co-author of more than 100 scientific research articles in astronomy and astrophysics. His work has been featured in publications such as New Scientist, Scientific American, Science News, Cosmos Magazine, Physics Today and National Geographic. For many years he wrote the Life, Unbounded blog for Scientific American. Follow Caleb A. Scharf on Twitter
