Exploring Mars

The month of August provides an excellent opportunity for you and your child to sit down together and learn more about another planet.  In 14 days the Mars Curiosity rover will land on the surface of Mars.  The NASA Curiosity Mission page has a ton of useful info to help you learn more about the purpose of this mission.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science SystemsDerivative work including grading, distortion correction, minor local adjustments and rendering from tiff-file: Julian Herzog [Public domain]

In particular on the mission page is an excellent discussion on the landing of the rover.  Even cooler yet, if you have an Xbox 360 you can download, for free, a Mars Rover Landing game.  Unfortunately I do not have an Xbox 360 so I wasn't able to play the game but it has received fairly good ratings (3.5 stars out of 5).  If you have the option, check it out.  Even if you don't have an Xbox 360, there are many other links on the NASA page that teach kids and adults about this mission.  

If you're looking to earn a few extra geek points with your child check out the Mars Rover Landing Event Map.  There may be an event near you to celebrate the hopefully successful landing of this craft.  Have fun!