Space and astronomy news
Geologists love fieldwork. They love getting their specialized hammers and chisels into seams in the rock, exposing unweathered surfaces and teasing out the rock’s secrets. Mars would be the ultimate field trip for many of them, but sadly, that’s not possible.
Instead, we’ve sent the Perseverance rover on the field trip. But if a geologist were along for the ride, what would it look like to them?
Continue reading “What a Geologist Sees When They Look at Perseverance’s Landing Site”
NASA’s Perseverance rover is practically bristling with cameras. And those cameras were busy during the rover’s breathtaking descent to the Martian surface. Now NASA has released images and videos of the blessed event.
Continue reading “Watch Perseverance Land on Mars. Mind…Blown”
When it comes to Mars exploration, NASA has more success than any other agency. This week, they’ll attempt to land another sophisticated rover on the Martian surface to continue the search for evidence of ancient life. The Mars Perseverance rover will land on Mars on Thursday, February 18th, and it’s bringing some very ambitious technologies with it.
Continue reading “NASA’s Perseverance Rover: The Most Ambitious Space Mission Ever?”
To casual observers, landing a rover on Mars can seem kind of like old news, believe it or not. Especially after all of NASA’s successes. But many are likely not aware of the so-called ‘Mars Curse.‘ The fact is, many of the spacecraft that attempt to land there fail and crash.
Next to run the gauntlet of the Mars Curse is NASA’s Perseverance rover. It’ll attempt its long-awaited landing at Jezero Crater on February 18th. The people at NASA have given the Perseverance rover some finely-tuned tools to get it to the Martian surface safely and to beat the Mars curse.
Continue reading “Perseverance Will Make Sure it has a Safe Landing”
Now that the UAE’s Hope spacecraft and China’sTianwen-1 have successfully reached the Red Planet, next up is NASA’s Perseverance rover, set to land on February 18th.
Ten operational spacecraft are currently in orbit or on the surface of Mars, ready to welcome the new rover. But one spacecraft in particular, the InSight lander, will be listening closely for Perseverance’s dramatic entry, descent and landing – a.k.a. the Seven Minutes of Terror.
Continue reading “InSight is Going to Try and “Hear” Perseverance Land on Mars From 3,452 km Away”
It’s looking more and more like the future of space exploration could involve drones in a big way.
We’ve already seen it here on Earth, where all kinds of flying drones are used by all kinds of people for all kinds of things. Drones are particularly useful in resource development, exploration, imaging, and remote sensing.
Could the future see drones flying around in the thin Martian atmosphere?
Continue reading “New Drones for Exploring Mars are Getting Tested in Iceland”
Many consider the various rovers we’ve sent to Mars as the next best thing to sending a geologist to the Red Planet. Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity have carried all the necessary equipment similar to what human geologists use on Earth, and are able to navigate the terrain, “see” the landscape with the various cameras, pick up rock and dust samples with scoops, and then analyze them with various onboard tools and equipment.
In addition to all those things, the new Mars 2020 Perseverance rover will add a “sense of hearing” to its robotic toolkit. The rover includes a pair of microphones to let us hear – for the first time – what Mars really sounds like.
Continue reading “Thanks to Perseverance, We’re Finally Going to Hear What Mars Sounds Like”
It’s always a sad day when a mission comes to an end. And it’s even sadder when the mission never really got going in the first place.
That’s where we’re at with NASA’s InSight lander. The entire mission isn’t over, but the so-called Mole, the instrument designed and built by Germany’s DLR, has been pronounced dead.
Continue reading “NASA Has Given Up on Trying to Deploy InSight’s Mole”
Remember the Hubble Deep Field? And its successor the Hubble Ultra Deep Field? We sure do here at Universe Today. How could we forget them?
Well, just as the Hubble Space Telescope has successors, so do two of its most famous images. And those successors will come from one of Hubble’s successors, NASA’s Roman Space Telescope.
Continue reading “The Roman Space Telescope’s Version of the Hubble Deep Field Will Cover a 100x Larger Area of the Sky”
The Juno mission to Jupiter has been extended to September 2025 – or however long the spacecraft can keep operating around Jupiter.
While Juno has so far focused its attention on the giant planet alone, the mission extension will include observations of Jupiter’s rings and large moons, with targeted observations and close flybys planned of the moons Ganymede, Europa, and Io.
This will be the first close flybys of these moons since the Galileo mission in 1995-2003.
Continue reading “With its New Extension, Juno is Going to be Visiting Jupiter’s Moons”