The successful landing of the Mars rover Curiosity is an incredible achievement that has spawned more than its fair share of news. But many questions remain unanswered: for instance, just what exactly is the purpose of the red rover, and more importantly, does it have lasers? We set out to answer some of those questions and dug up some absolutely crazy facts about Curiosity and its mission to Mars.

1 It's on Mars

We're not suggesting you've been under a rock, but it's easy to take these things for granted, so just take a moment and consider how amazing it is that NASA put this thing down, intact, on the surface of another planet 350 million miles away from ours. In the words of one mission control engineer: "We are wheels down on Mars. Oh my God."

2 It was named by a 6th Grader.

Formally known as the Mars Science Laboratory, Curiosity's press moniker came from a 2008 student naming contest. The winning name, selected by NASA, was dreamed up by a sixth-grader in Lenexa, Kansas.

3 What's cooler than 1.5 billion dollars? $2.5 billion.

That's what the Curiosity mission cost - a full billion over NASA's original budget for the project. Launch was originally scheduled for 2009, with landing in 2010, but there were developmental delays. Engineers spent the extra time running tests to ensure success, but of course this brought the project over budget.

4 It (literally) weighs a ton.

Curiosity weighs 1,982 pounds on Earth. That's about as much as a MINI Cooper.

5 The landing happened fast.

Curiosity entered Mars's atmosphere at 13,200 mph. Its approach velocity was more like 8,000 mph, with the planet's gravity making up the difference. This hardly caught NASA's engineer's by surprise, though the rover did touch down a full minute later than scheduled, and the entry period was referred to as the 'seven minutes of terror'.

6 Now that it's on the ground, it's slow.

The rover is only expected to travel 3 to 12 miles in its two operational years on Mars, with a maximum average speed of 0.00073 mph.

7 Nuclear Power

Solar power isn't reliable enough for NASA. Their solution? Nuclear power - specifically the Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator. The generator has enough plutonium-238 dioxide to power Curiosity for as long as 14 years, though its mission will only last 23 months.

8 Its computers are less powerful than the iPhone 4S

The iPhone 4S has four times the processing power of Curiosity, which packs a mere 200MHz CPU, and a measly 2GB of SSD storage. So why didn't NASA just build a 30-pin iPhone dock into the rover? Well, Apple's smartphones aren't built to withstand huge amounts of radiation, so calling them more advanced than the hardware NASA spent millions developing is kind of misleading. Curiosity has several of these fallout-resistant computers (in case one breaks).

9 Curiosity isn't equipped to find life on Mars; just signs that it's possible.

Curiosity's explicit mission is to search for the basic ingredients essential for life - concentrations of elements like carbon, nitrogen, phosphorous, sulfur and oxygen. It doesn't have the equipment to excavate fossils or examine microorganisms. If the rover finds what it's looking for, NASA will schedule a further mission to bring rocks and soil back to Earth for extensive tests.

10 Power Tools

Sure, Curiosity is packed with all kinds of boring science-y stuff - 17 cameras, a weather station, an onboard chemistry lab and radiation detector. But it's also got a robotic arm with a power drill, and a laser that can zap rocks (or martians!) into oblivion from as far off as 23 feet. These must have some scientific purpose, but they sure feel like a sci-fi shout out to us.

11 Bull's Eye

Curiosity came down at the foot of a mountain inside the Gale Crater, right on target. NASA originally had a 12 by 16 mile target area, but confidence in their landing tech led them to cut the area by half back in June.

12 But what happened to the lander?

NASA doesn't know where the jetpack lander that helped bring the rover down to the surface crashed after it detached. NASA maintains this was the plan - that they didn't want it contaminating Curiosity's environment. But isn't that exactly what they would say if the lander was captured by space-aliens? . . . think about it.

Jon Fox is a Seattle hipster who loves polar bears and climbing trees. You can follow him on Twitter and IGN