Space and astronomy news
NASA’s Perseverance Rover has been exploring Mars for more than 900 sols. It’s the most scientifically advanced rover ever built and has opened our eyes wider to Mars and the possibility that it hosted life. The rover’s crowning achievement is preparing samples for eventual return to Earth, an important next step in understanding Mars. But …
Continue reading “NASA’s Perseverance Rover is Setting Records on Mars”
The search for life on Mars has been a long a confusing one. Inconclusive experiments abound, but one thing is certain – there is definitely organic material on the Red Planet. Now, a new study in Nature has confirmed that finding and showed just how complex that organic material actually is.
The Perseverance rover has spotted a donut shaped rock on Mars, which could be the remains of a crashed meteorite.
Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (NASA-JPL) are busy keeping the Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter functioning in Jezero Crater on Mars while these robotic explorers continue the search for ancient microbial life on the Red Planet. But some of those same engineers have also been busy working with LEGO designers on new one-tenth-scale LEGO …
In a first for Martian water science, NASA’s Perseverance rover has discovered geological evidence of a large, fast-moving river in Mars’ ancient past. The high-energy river once emptied into Jezero crater, which the rover has been exploring since early 2021, and is a totally different water system than anything seen previously on the red planet.
Our favorite Martian helicopter did it again. The tiny Ingenuity chopper recently did its 51st flight on Mars. It traveled 188 meters this time (about 617 feet) on April 22, 2023, and reached a maximum altitude of 12 meters (about 39 feet) over the Martian surface. During that time, it snapped another image of its …
Continue reading “Ingenuity Snaps Another Shot of Perseverance on the Move”
It’s the end of an era, at least for the Perseverance rover on Mars, who has lost a long-time friend. For 427 sols or days on Mars, Perseverance has been carrying around a rock in one of its wheels. We’ve been following the saga of this pet rock, which for over a year has stuck …
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NASA’s Perseverance rover just obtained its sixteenth sample, which will be retrieved by the joint NASA/ESA Sample Return Mission
NASA’s Perseverance rover mission provided a bluish pre-sunrise gift above Jezero Crater on March 18, 2022, aka Sol 738, or the 738th Martian day of the mission, with “sol” being the official timekeeping method for Mars missions since one Martian day is approximately 40 minutes longer than one Earth day. And, on this particular sol, …
Continue reading “Perseverance Sees Drifting Clouds on Mars”
In some of the best footage yet, the Perseverance rover has taken new video of the Ingenuity helicopter taking off and flying over Mars’ surface.