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NASA on Friday unveiled plans for its Mars rover Curiosity’s first road trip, part of a two-year quest to determine if the planet most like Earth could ever have hosted microbial life, scientists said.

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tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Mount Sharp or bust: NASA reveals details of Curiosity rover's Martian travel plans Back to video

The one-ton nuclear-powered robotic science lab landed in a large crater near Mars’s equator on August 6 to search for organic materials and other chemistry considered key to life.

The rover’s primary target is Mount Sharp, a mound of layered rock three miles high rising from the floor of Gale Crater.

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Before beginning the 7-km trek to the base of Mount Sharp, a journey expected to take months, the six-wheeled Curiosity will visit a relatively nearby site named “Glenelg,” which caught scientists’ interest because it includes three types of terrain.

The name was selected from a list of about 100 rock formations in northern Canada. Scientists realized Glenelg was a palindrome — a word that reads the same backward — and particularly suited as the name for Curiosity’s first destination since the rover will have to come back through the site to head to Mount Sharp.