NASA`s Mars Curiosity rover finally reaches Mount Sharp

Zee Media Bureau/Shruti Saxena

New Delhi: US space scientists on Friday said that after spending a span of 25 months in the Martian desert, NASA's Curiosity rover has finally reached the base of the Martian mountain.

The Curiosity rover has reached the destination called Mt. Sharp, the 3-mile-high mound in the middle of Gale Crater, after a trekking of an year.

John Grotzinger, Curiosity project scientist at the California Institute of Technology was quoted as saying: “We have finally arrived at the far frontier that we have sought for so long”.

However, a review panel has criticised the Curiosity team for taking longer time than expected.

The aim of Curiosity is now to start drilling rocks there soon to unearth the mystery hidden in the Martian dirt and to find clues about the planet's past.

Dubbed as the most expensive mission to the red planet with a worth of $2.5 billion, Curiosity landed on the Red Planet in August 2012, after a dramatic touchdown with the aim to drill into rocks and find out traces of life that may have once existed.