Curiosity Relays Audio Transmission from Mars

For the first time, the human voice has traveled from Earth to another planet and back, according to a  announcement, yesterday. 

The spoken words of NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, congratulating employees for their achievements, were radioed to the rover on Mars and back to NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN) on earth.

Along with the voice playback, NASA also released new photos of the Mars' landscape.

According to the JPL release, "The telephoto images beamed back to Earth show a scene of eroded knobs and gulches on a mountainside, with geological layering clearly exposed. The new views were taken by the 100-millimeter telephoto lens and the 34-milllimeter wide angle lens of the Mast Camera (Mastcam) instrument. Mastcam has photographed the lower slope of the nearby mountain called Mount Sharp."

"This is an area on Mount Sharp where Curiosity will go," said Mastcam principal investigator Michael Malin.

Curiosity has already returned more data from Mars than all the other earlier NASA rovers combined.

To view the new images, and for more information about the Curiosity rover, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl .