Posts tagged curiosity
Is Mars Infested With Pareidolia Rats?
…speaking of Mars. What the heck is THAT? Mars rat? A Red Planet gopher? A… rock?! Yeah, it’s a rock.
Mars Explorers Face Huge Radiation Problem
A radiation sensor inside NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover shows that even under the best-case scenario and behind shielding currently being designed for NASA’s new deep-space capsule, future travelers will face a huge amount of radiation.
Rough Roving: Curiosity’s Wheels Show Damage
Recent photos from Curiosity show dents, scratches and suspect punctures in the wheels’ aluminum skin. Is it a serious problem? Discovery News finds out from Curiosity’s lead rover driver Matt Heverly.
Curiosity, Interrupted: Sun Makes Mars Go Dark
NASA has stopped sending commands to Mars rover Curiosity and will soon follow suit for rover Opportunity, Odyssey and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). But don’t worry, government cutbacks haven’t severed interplanetary communications, you can blame the sun. Read more.
Curiosity’s Parachute Flaps in the Martian Wind
Apart from being a minor curiosity and a lovely reminder that we have satellites capable of observing temporal weather events on another planet, these flapping events may help explain why the Viking landers’ parachutes still remain visible from orbit since their landing in 1976 — windy events dust-off the bright parachute material. Also, the motion of a large piece of fabric on the surface of Mars provides a direct view of the weather conditions on the ground, much like a windsock on an airfield provides pilots with general information about wind direction and speed.
Mars Was a Suitable Environment for Life
The first analysis of powder drilled out from the inside of water-soaked rock shows Mars was a suitable place for microbial life to evolve, scientists with NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity mission said Tuesday.
The ingredients may be there… but was life? Read more
Mars Rover Dishes Up First Bite of Rock Powder
And it tastes like chicken, apparently.
Curiosity Collects First Mars Bedrock Sample
In a first, the Mars rover Curiosity has penetrated a rock on the Red Planet and collected a sample from its interior, the US space agency announced Saturday. Using a drill at the end of its robotic arm, Curiosity bore a hole 0.6 inches (1.6 centimeters) wide and 2.5 inches (6.4 centimeters) deep into the rock, generating powder for evaluation, NASA said in a statement. Read more.
Curiosity goes to Mars for a little privacy and what did she get? A goddamn orbiting paparazzi!
Orbiting Mars Robot Spies On Curiosity’s Tracks
Mars Through Curiosity’s Powerful MAHLI Camera
…since the true clarity of MAHLI has been unleashed, we’ve been treated to some of the most high-resolution views of the rover, Martian landscape and, most importantly, we’ve seen exactly what MAHLI was designed to do: Look closely at Mars rocks and dirt, assembling geological evidence of potential past habitability of Mars. Open gallery…
WHAT THE HECK IS THAT ON MARS?! A fossil? A flower? A Mars orchid! Morchid! (See what I did there?)
Nah, it’s most likely a bright mineral concentration in a Mars rock outcrop at Yellowknife Bay as photographed by Curiosity (although that has yet to be confirmed by NASA)… but it certainly gets our collective imaginations going. Thank you you big hulk of Mars rover, you’re constantly showing us some very cool stuff, can’t wait for your next mystery.
