One thing I love about Twitter is the way that it expands your living room during momentous cultural events---the way it adds a layer of updates, jokes, links and analysis to whatever stream of images you happen to be watching. It's one of the first things I mention when I try to convince Twitter-skeptics to give the service a shot. Last night, the Curiosity landing dominated my Twitter stream. Curiosity-related chatter began several hours before the rover even reached the red planet, built steadily through its
ingeniously engineered landing, and exploded when the rover
announced , with its very own Twitter feed, that it was safely on the surface of Mars. Science journalist Ed Yong described the night best when he
tweeted : "I have NEVER seen my Twitter stream discuss a single topic and ONLY a single topic until now. Marvelous time to be alive."
I wanted to share a version of this experience, so this morning I used Storify, a tool that lets you build stories from different pieces of your social media streams, to compile an abridged version of my Twitter feed from last night. It doesn't quite capture the real time thrill of following a big, exciting news event on Twitter, but it will give you a feel for it:
[<a href="http://storify.com/andersen/the-best-curiosity-tweets-from-last-night" target="_blank">View the story "The Best Curiosity Tweets From Last Night" on Storify</a>]<h1>The Best Curiosity Tweets From Last Night</h1><h2></h2><p>Storified by Ross Andersen · Mon, Aug 06 2012 11:03:47</p><div>During Curiosity's initial descent, Twitter streams were a mash of technical updates from NASA and journalists at JPL:</div><div>Entering Mars' atmosphere. 7. Minutes. Of. Terror. Starts. NOW. #MSLCuriosity Rover</div><div>The Curiosity twitter feed has gone silent, which is good. DON'T TEXT AND DESCEND.James Lileks</div><div>Vehicle is reporting heartbeat tones again. Everything is fine. Standing by for parachute deploy. #MSLEmily Lakdawalla</div><div>"Continuing to receive heartbeat tones" is my new favorite NASA saying and title of my forthcoming indie movie.Alexis C. Madrigal</div><div>PARACHUTE DEPLOYMENT CONFIRMED! #MSL's Chute generates 289 Kilonewtons of Drag Force - a whopping 9Gs at opening!MSL Curiosity</div><div>CONFIRMED - HEAT SHIELD SEPARATION - The shield has dropped away to give #MSL's Landing Radar a free field of view!MSL Curiosity</div><div>WE HAVE ACQUIRED THE GROUND WITH THE RADAR #MSLEmily Lakdawalla</div><div>BACKSHELL SEPARATION CONFIRMED - #MSL is now free falling before starting Powered Descent.MSL Curiosity</div><div>POWERED DESCENT - The 8 Mars Landing Engines are now in charge of Powered Flight. #MSLMSL Curiosity</div><div>"We've found a nice flat place." #MSLEmily Lakdawalla</div><div>ROVER SEPARATION CONFIRMED- Sky Crane Portion of the Flight is in Progress. #MSLMSL Curiosity</div><div>TOUCHDOWN CONFIRMED - Curiosity is on the Surface of Mars! Standing by to confirm initial Vehicle Health!MSL Curiosity</div><div>Then, the biggest tweet of the night:</div><div>I'm safely on the surface of Mars. GALE CRATER I AM IN YOU!!! #MSLCuriosity Rover</div><div>At JPL, the mission control team <a target="_blank" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqiOSQ_8xyA&feature=youtu.be">exploded</a>. </div><div>Jet Propulsion Labs, NASA: A reminder of what it feels like "to boldly go" http://pic.twitter.com/oUohiGzgNeil deGrasse Tyson</div><div>There is no cuter sound than nerds having a collective orgasm.Steve Silberman</div><div>Love that these folks know how to land a spaceship on mars, but can't high-five with any precision.Ryan Singel</div><div>"There's a lot of crying at Mission Control right now." AS THERE SHOULD BE. #curiosity http://yfrog.com/mo6s6pMegan Garber</div><div>And so did Twitter:</div><div>Gold medal for NASA in the 563 billion metersBen Dolman</div><div>Next time someone tells you a touchdown is when a man carries a ball over a line on grass, remember this.Adam Rogers</div><div>Today I saw a man with no legs run in the Olympics and a robot from Earth land on Mars. Holy freaking hell - science is awesome.Janessa Goldbeck</div><div>Some say they were born before their time; others after. Being able to follow a Tweeting robot landing on Mars, I was born just right.Nick Bilton</div><div>If there were ever a time to chant U-S-A, it's now. And, happily, no one is.Philip Bump</div><div>Hey 8-year-old me, I just watched NASA land a giant rover on Mars on my wireless pocket computer. You're going to like it here in the futureMatthew Panzarino</div><div>The <a target="_blank" href="http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/08/the-first-available-high-res-image-from-the-curiosity-rover-on-mars/260731/">first images</a> followed shortly thereafter:</div><div>It once was one small step... now it's six big wheels. Here's a look at one of them on the soil of Mars #MSL http://pic.twitter.com/uzO99NZzCuriosity Rover</div><div>I see wheels on SOIL ! #MSLEmily Lakdawalla</div><div>A jet-fired hover crane just lowered a nuclear robot bigger than my car onto Mars. Then it emailed us pics, from the other side of the sun.Travis Beacham</div><div>Pics. It happened.Quinn Norton</div><div>After the first explosion of joy, the pop culture riffing and general <a target="_blank" href="http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/08/the-curiosity-landing-already-has-a-meme-nasas-mohawk-guy/260733/">meme-generating</a> began in earnest:</div><div>Best Total Recall viral marketing campaign ever.jonahkeri</div><div>Top Google headlines now are humanity at its worst & best. http://pic.twitter.com/qk9pX328Steve Silberman</div><div>Mars entertainments: #MSL cost 10x what the movie "John Carter" did but it's already more exciting and has a bigger audience.John Rennie</div><div>Kind of in love with the fact that the crowd in Times Square chanted "Science! Science! Science!" then, "NASA! NASA! NASA!"Ben Lillie</div><div>"Hitler finds out Curiosity has successfully landed on Mars." make it happen, people.Xeni Jardin</div><div>Mars Curiosity mission, brought to you for the price of a movie for every man, woman and child in the US. "That's a movie I want to see,"Nancy Atkinson</div><div>best one, has that Ron Burgundy flavor. MT @MarsCuriosity: I'm safely on the surface of Mars. GALE CRATER I AM IN YOU!!! #MSLMaria Bustillos</div><div>I can't believe a probe just landed on Mars and it took me three tries to get a bottom sheet onto my bed.Julius Sharpe</div><div>Tweets about Curiosity continued to trickle in this morning:</div><div>Buzz Aldrin was on hand at JPL last night to pre-punch people thinking of calling it a hoax. #CuriosityBillCorbett</div><div>(context <a target="_blank" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wcrkxOgzhU">here</a>)</div><div>I'm waiting until primetime to watch NBC's highlights of the Mars Curiosity, so please people, no spoilers on if it landed or not.Eric Nelson</div><div>And, finally, a perfect capper: an image of the descent caught by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter:<div><br></div></div><div>Eye in the Sky: MRO's @HiRISE camera caught this shot of me & my parachute during landing at Mars #MSL http://twitpic.com/ag8j1wCuriosity Rover</div>
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