Tag: Mars

Here’s How Curiosity’s Sky Crane Changed the Way NASA Explores Mars

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5 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) This artist’s concept shows how NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover was lowered to the planet’s surface using the sky crane maneuver. NASA / JPL-Caltech The rocket-powered descent stage that lowered NASA’s Curiosity onto the Martian surface is guided over the rover by technicians at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in September 2011, two months before the mission’s launch. NASA/Kim Shiflett Twelve years ago, NASA landed its six-wheeled science lab using a daring new technology that lowers the rover using a…

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NASA Invites Media, Public to Attend Deep Space Food Challenge Finale

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NASA’s Deep Space Food Challenge directly supports the agency’s Moon to Mars initiatives. Credit: NASA NASA invites the media and public to explore the nexus of space and food innovation at the agency’s Deep Space Food Challenge symposium and winners’ announcement at the Nationwide and Ohio Farm Bureau 4-H Center in Columbus, Ohio, on Friday, Aug. 16.  In 2019, NASA and the CSA (Canadian Space Agency) started the Deep Space Food Challenge, a multi-year international effort to develop sustainable food systems for long-duration habitation in space including the Moon and Mars.…

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NASA’s Perseverance Rover Scientists Find Intriguing Mars Rock

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7 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) NASA’s Perseverance rover discovered “leopard spots” on a reddish rock nicknamed “Cheyava Falls” in Mars’ Jezero Crater in July 2024. Scientists think the spots may indicate that, billions of years ago, the chemical reactions in this rock could have supported microbial life; other explanations are being considered. NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS An annotated version of the image of “Cheyava Falls” indicates the markings akin to leopard spots, which have particularly captivated scientists, and the olivine in the rock. The image was captured…

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Here’s How AI Is Changing NASA’s Mars Rover Science

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6 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video In this time-lapse video of a test conducted at JPL in June 2023, an engineering model of the Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry (PIXL) instrument aboard NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover places itself against a rock to collect data. NASA/JPL-Caltech Artificial intelligence is helping scientists to identify minerals within rocks studied by the Perseverance rover. Some scientists dream of exploring planets with…

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Watch NASA’s 1st year-long mock Mars mission wrap up today

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NASA Live: Official Stream of NASA TV – YouTube Watch On NASA’s first year-long mock Mars mission will come to an end today (July 6), and you can watch the action live. That mission, the first in the CHAPEA (“Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog”) series, began on June 25, 2003, when four volunteers were sealed inside a simulated Mars habitat at NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston. The quartet will exit the habitat today, after a staggering 378 days. You can watch their return to regular Earth life…

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Mars orbiter captures Red Planet scar that’s longer than the Grand Canyon (image)

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New images published by the European Space Agency have captured a 600-kilometer-long (373-mile-long) snaking scar on Mars’ surface in greater detail than ever before. The Red Planet is full of scratches and scars, and this one, named Aganippe Fossa, is another of these ditch-like grooves with steep walls — more specifically, however, Aganippe Fossa is what’s called a “graben.”  “We’re still unsure of how and when Aganippe Fossa came to be, but it seems likely that it was formed as magma rising underneath the colossal mass of the Tharsis volcanoes…

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Mars Odyssey celebrates 100,000 orbits, captures epic view of solar system’s largest volcano

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NASA’s Odyssey spacecraft, the longest-running mission at Mars, circled the Red Planet for the 100,000th time today, the mission team announced in a statement. To celebrate the milestone, the space agency released an intricate panorama of Olympus Mons, the tallest volcano in the solar system;  Odyssey captured the view in March. The volcano’s base sprawls 373 miles (600 kilometers) near the Martian equator while it soars 17 miles (27 kilometers) into the planet’s thin air. Earlier this month, astronomers discovered ephemeral morning frost coating the volcano’s top for a few…

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NASA’s Mars Odyssey Captures Huge Volcano, Nears 100,000 Orbits

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5 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) NASA’s 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter captured this single image of Olympus Mons, the tallest volcano in the solar system, on March 11, 2024. Besides providing an unprecedented view of the volcano, the image helps scientists study different layers of material in the atmosphere, including clouds and dust. NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU The 23-year-old orbiter is taking images that offer horizon-wide views of the Red Planet similar to what astronauts aboard the International Space Station see over Earth. NASA’s longest-lived Mars robot is…

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‘We thought it was impossible:’ Water frost on Mars discovered near Red Planet’s equator

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Water frost has been spotted at the equator of Mars for the first time. In this region of the Red Planet, equivalent to its tropics, it was previously believed that it would be impossible for frost to exist.  The discovery could be crucial to modeling where water exists on Mars and how it is exchanged between the Red Planet’s atmosphere and its surface. This could be vital for future crewed exploration of Mars.  The water frost was seen by two European Space Agency (ESA) spacecraft, first by the ExoMars Trace…

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Mars is more prone to devastating asteroid impacts than we thought, new study hints

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Mars may face more than twice as many close encounters with potentially dangerous asteroids as Earth does, according to a new study. This could imperil exploratory missions to the Red Planet, but also provide insight into how the inner solar system formed.  Asteroids constitute the biggest threat from space to our planet — the 2013 Chelyabinsk meteor, for example, generated shock waves that injured over 1,000 people and caused more than $33 million in damage to infrastructure.  Astronomers and citizen asteroid hunters have detected around 33,000 similar space rocks that whiz closely past Earth…

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