Source: The Warsaw Voice:
NASA’s Curiosity rover, which successfully landed on Mars Aug. 6, is fitted with infrared detectors developed and manufactured by Poland’s Vigo System company. The Curiosity mission was one of the most important NASA projects in recent years.
Curiosity, which weighs almost a ton, touched down on the surface of Mars in an area around Gale Crater and immediately sent the first photographs of its surroundings. The photos showed the surface of the crater and a high mountain inside it, called Aeolis Mons.
Gale Crater is 154 km in diameter and believed to be about 3.5 to 3.8 billion years old. The crater has a complicated geological structure and is named after Walter Frederick Gale, an Australian amateur astronomer who observed Mars in the late 19th century. The crater is located near the equator of Mars. Scientists are pinning great hopes on a closer examination by Curiosity of Aeolis Mons, which is 5.5 km high. The mountain has a layered structure and at its base are probably sedimentary rocks from the early history of Mars, which could indicate that there was once water, and perhaps life, on the planet. The rover also sent to Earth a video recording the last two-and-a-half minutes of its landing.