The NASA Curiosity video compiled from official NASA images sent by the Mars rover captivated the world last August. The video is actually a highly compressed series of images beamed back from Curiosity and pieced together at 15 frames per second into a stunning time-lapse video.
Created by visual effects artist Daniel Luke Fitch, the NASA Curiosity video gave us a Michael Bay-esque look at what real life space exploration looks like and reminded us it's exciting. In the 60s, the still-frames now released regularly by NASA would have left your parents spellbound, but today we need time-lapse video.
While it's certainly possible that Fitch or some other effects artist will compile another NASA Curiosity video, it should be pointed out that NASA's space mission has never placed particular emphasis on eye candy, so it stands to be reasoned that the true fruits of the Mars rover mission are conveyed along a subtler medium.
The NASA Curiosity rover discovered proof that water once existed on the Red Planet. Unfortunately, the proof came by way of a soil sample and the trophy piece of evidence was, brace for it: a pebble. Michael Bay just went from six to midnight.
A pebble and some gravel changed science forever, but there wasn't any atmospheric plunge or CGI-explosion, then NASA followed up with a pledge to learn more about the duration of Martian water flows. Captivating.
If water existed on Mars, it's likely that living things once existed there as well. This is exciting news, but no one really felt that way, so NASA was defunded. No more interminable pebble-news - now we just wait for the next NASA Curiosity video.
