Extraterrestrial life of primitive life near the Rio Tinto river in Spain. NASA officials soon distanced NASA from the scientists' claims, and Stoker herself backed off from her initial assertions. Though such methane findings are still debated, support among some scientists for the existence of life on Mars exists. In November 2011, NASA launched the Mars Science Laboratory that landed the "Curiosity" rover on Mars. It is designed to assess the past and present habitability on Mars using a variety of scientific instruments. The rover landed on Mars at Gale Crater in August 2012. The Gaia hypothesis stipulates that any planet with
Rover (space exploration) it landed on the Martian Meridiani Planum on January 25, 2004 at 05:05 Ground UTC (about 13:15 local time), three weeks after its twin "Spirit" (MER-A) touched down on the other side of the planet. On July 28, 2014, NASA announced that "Opportunity", after having traveled over on the planet Mars, has set a new "off-world" record as the rover having driven the greatest distance, surpassing the previous record held by the Soviet Union's Lunokhod 2 rover that had traveled . () On 26 November 2011, NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission was successfully launched for Mars. The mission successfully landed