> On August 5, 2013, what did the Mars Curiosity rover do?And the answer: hum the birthday song. Photo credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSSTo celebrate Curiosity's first successfulyear on Mars, NASA engineers programmed it to vibrate to the "Happy Birthday"song. The unit celebrated all by itself in a Martian crater, millions of milesaway from home. Ultimately, NASA decided that was the only time it couldcelebrate, as the mission is more based in science than the arts.In 2011, Curiosity set out to answer the question: did Mars ever have the rightenvironmental conditions to support small life forms called microbes? WhenCuriosity landed on Mars in 2013, it brought the biggest, most advancedscientific instruments yet to touch the surface of Mars. Each day, it takessamples of rock and soil to study. Curiosity tests land for the presence of water. Curiosity can drill into each ofthese blocks of rock and place a sample into its oven to measure itscomposition. Researchers will then see if organics appear that were not supposedto be in the block. If so, scientists determine these are organisms hitchhikingfrom Earth.On February 18, 2021, the most recent Mars Rover touched down on the red planet.Rover Perseverance will spend the rest of its robotic life searching forevidence of ancient life on Mars. Learn more about the Curiosity mission here[https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/timeline/surface-operations/], and Perseverance here[https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/mission/facts/].