Curiosity (rover) comparison to Pancam on the Mars Exploration Rovers, the MastCam-34 has 1.25× higher spatial resolution and the MastCam-100 has 3.67× higher spatial resolution. The region the rover is set to explore has been compared to the Four Corners region of the North American west. Gale Crater has an area similar to Connecticut and Rhode Island combined. Colin Pillinger, leader of the "Beagle 2" project, reacted emotionally to the large number of technicians monitoring "Curiosity" descent, because "Beagle 2" had only four people monitoring it. The "Beagle 2" team made a virtue out of necessity; it was known that there was
Curiosity (rover) ("Mount Sharp"), at the center of the wide crater. Thus, it is believed that the rover may have the opportunity to study two billion years of Martian history in the sediments exposed in the mountain. Additionally, its landing site is near an alluvial fan, which is hypothesized to be the result of a flow of ground water, either before the deposition of the eroded sediments or else in relatively recent geologic history. According to NASA, an estimated 20,000 to 40,000 heat-resistant bacterial spores were on "Curiosity" at launch, and as much as 1,000 times that number may not have been