Clara Ma (right), a 6th grader from Lenexa, Kan., suggested the name Curiousity for the rover.
The rover is almost the size of a small sport-utility vehicle. It is about 2.8 meters (9 feet long) and four times as heavy as NASA's twin Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity.
The first Mars rover, Sojourner, was about as big as a microwave oven.
According to Adam Steltzner (the lead mechanical engineer for entry, descent and landing) the mach gauge shown during the landing used Martian mach numbers. Mach 1 on Mars is approx. 240 m per second, whereas it's about 332 m per second on Earth.
It takes about 90 people to operate a Mars rover each day.