NASA's New Mission to Mars
COSTELLO: Seven minutes of terror. That's what NASA's newest Mars rover, the size of a small car, faces in the coming weeks. It's a mission to Mars that faces a series of unbelievable maneuvers above the Red Planet. Sounds a little like -- actually, sounds a lot like science fiction. John Zarrella joins us live from Florida. So John, NASA is talking about these seven minutes of terror today. Explain that for us.</s>JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, you know, Carol, in fact, it is seven minutes of terror if you're a NASA engineer. What it is, is Curiosity is just a few weeks from entering the atmosphere of the Red Planet in what could be an historic NASA Mars mission. What is going to happen is this lander is going to come through the atmosphere at about 13,000 miles an hour. And perform maneuvers that they have never attempted before in order to get Curiosity to a very precise landing spot. The parachutes are going to deploy, to slow the vehicle down, but it's only going to slow it down to about 200 miles per hour. They have to slow it down further, so what do they do then. Then they jettison the parachute and they fire these rockets on the Curiosity lander. The vehicle -- the entire vehicle then moves off to the side, reorients itself to the planet's surface and then these giant tethers drop almost like a crane, as you can see in the animation there, and then the entire vehicle will safely land at a spot called the gale crater on Mars. If it all works. So that is seven minutes of terror because they have never done it before.</s>COSTELLO: All that happens in seven minutes?</s>ZARRELLA: Seven minutes.</s>COSTELLO: So essentially, this is like a mobile laboratory. If it survives the landing and everything goes to plan, what will we learn?</s>COSTELLO: Well, NASA is hoping that this vehicle, this rover, which has the ability never before have we had this ability, to actually drill into rocks on the surface, to dig up these rocks and these little samples that it collects, put them in mobile laboratories on the spacecraft itself and analyze this in hopes of detecting not life itself, but some of the building blocks of life -- carbon, water, things that in the past on Mars may well have supported life then, perhaps still do.</s>COSTELLO: Ok, I'm going to keep my fingers crossed.</s>ZARRELLA: Yes.</s>COSTELLO: John Zarrella. Thank you so much.</s>ZARRELLA: Sure.</s>COSTELLO: The heat is back on. You know back here on earth, hot weather returns for many of us all over the country. But how's this for hot? Temperatures soaring into the triple digits in Death Valley, California. Check it out. High temperature, 110 degrees. Just the right conditions to run a 135-mile marathon. Yes, there's a marathon going on in Death Valley. Alexandra Steele joins us now to tell us about the crazy people.</s>ALEXANDRA STEELE, AMS METEOROLOGIST: You're like back on earth. These people are other worldly.</s>COSTELLO: Are they?</s>STEELE: 135 miles in 120 degree heat. So it started this morning, this Badwater Ultra Marathon. There's really two things that make it so-called bad -- right -- or extreme. Of course, it's the elevation and the extreme temperatures. Let me show you this Google map and show you the elevation. It began this morning at Badwater in Death Valley, California, of course. The infamous Death Valley which is 282 feet below sea level. It will end in 48 hours, from whence it began -- that's your time limit -- at Mt. Whitney, the elevation there 8,360 feet. So they're running 135 miles. It covers, Carol, three mountain ranges, a total of 13,000 feet ascent. That's a little problematic area number one. Number two, the temperature. The average temperature there is 104. Not out of the question to get to 120. For the next three days, you can see between 110 and 112. And you know, it would easily hit 120. What does 120 feel like? Give you a little perspective. Paraffin wax, a candle, can melt at 120. A rare steak is only 130, and bath water at 120 will scald you and do damage to human tissue.</s>COSTELLO: Wow. So I just --</s>STEELE: Who would do this?</s>COSTELLO: who would do this and how do you train for it?</s>STEELE: Well, the latter I'm not sure. Not in heels, not if you're smoking, I suppose. There are 95, you have to be invited. So we weren't on the invite list. Oddly enough, or you would say, I totally get it, the average age of these 95 participants is 45 years old. So when you get older, you want to (inaudible) it and make it happen.</s>COSTELLO: Well, your body is better able to run long distances. So I guess that's why all the people are --</s>STEELE: Well, when I get older, I'll have to see if that works out like that. 19 countries and 24 states, but this is a funny story. The blog of one of the guys who was not 45, he was much older, he is on a stationary bicycle in a sauna which is 150 to 180 degrees for 100 miles, just kind of preparing. Just one day.</s>COSTELLO: We'll see if it works if he wins.</s>STEELE: Eating protein bars would that help?</s>COSTELLO: I think maybe gallons and gallons and gallons of liquid.</s>STEELE: And you see them all and they're wearing white. And one thing, you think they're like naked, not good to be naked or barely nothing because you need the clothes to protect your skin. I mean not like -- you know --</s>COSTELLO: Thanks Alexandra. Even if you're not in Death Valley, you can easily get a sun burn. So many people slather layer upon layer of sunscreen, but what if you're still getting burned through all of that? The solution may not be what you put on your skin but what you put in your belly.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you know we can protect our skin from the sun just by eating the right food? Yes, it's true. Some foods are what we call photo protective. And one that I think is great for summer is watermelon. Watermelon contains high amounts of antioxidants that act as natural and anti-inflammatories and can help us prevent sun burn. In addition to watermelon, tomatoes, a fabulous anti-oxidant called Lutein concentrates in our skin and gives us photo protection. Another is cocoa. Yes, it's hard to believe something like chocolate can protect our skin. Chocolate contains another powerful anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory called flavanols. And if you have that little square of chocolate before you go out in the sun, you're actually doing yourself some good. A little bit of the right food can protect us from the sun for summer.