NASA goes social...and to Mars!

With just a few weeks to go before the scheduled landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars, NASA is turning to YouTube, Twitter and other social networks to create a big buzz in the program.

It all started on November 26 of last year when NASA’s car-sized rover, Curiosity, departed on its mission. Now the Twitter account, Mars Curiosity, has more than 112,000 followers who get regular updates about the spacecraft’s trip and challenges.

NASA has been very active online since the early days of social media and brought together thousands of its social-media fans at shuttle launches, tweet-ups and other events. The next event is called NASA Social where participants will be provided a unique in-person experience with the Mars Science Laboratory mission. NASA will randomly select 25 participants from online registrations; if you're a space enthusiast or just curious about the event click here.

The video, entitled "Curiosity's Seven Minutes of Terror," describes how NASA is going to land the rover once it gets to Mars. I recommend you watch it J, it is awesome and it has already more than 600,000 views and lots of passionate comments.

You might recall one of my earlier posts where I mentioned NASA...the Top 10 tweets of all time.