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The U.S. Mars-rover Curiosity is scheduled to touch down inside a vast, ancient impact crater at 05:31 GMT on Monday, or 1:31 Monday afternoon, Beijing time.

After a journey from Earth of more than 567 million kilometres, the rover should land near the foot of a tall mountain rising from the floor of Gale Crater in Mars’ southern hemisphere.

Curiosity is billed as the first full-fledged analytical laboratory on wheels ever sent to another world. It is designed primarily to search for evidence that Mars may have once harboured conditions favourable to microbial life.

Anticipation as the Mars rover Curiosity streaks into the home stretch of its eight-month voyage Sunday nearing a make-or-break landing attempt.

Mars Rover Curiosity Closes In for Sunday Night Landing (ABC News)

This artist’s concept depicts a sky crane lowering NASA’s Curiosity rover onto the Martian surface, a landing plan NASA has dubbed “seven minutes of terror.”

Editor:Zhang Jingya |Source: CCTV.com