For space explorers
For space explorers
NASA’s Curiosity Rover is celebrating the 11th anniversary of its landing on Mars. AmericaSpace reviews the discoveries which it has made over the past year, including new findings about Mars’ habitability, clouds, and radiation.
Update – Nov. 1, 2019: NASA InSight just tweeted that the mole appears to be stable and more images are being taken to try to solve the problem:
Continue reading
It seems that Mars is belching methane again. NASA’s Curiosity rover has detected a new burst of the gas, it was reported today in the New York Times.
The new detection of the gas – which can come from either biology or geology – happened last Wednesday.
Continue reading
Is there or has there ever been life on Mars? We still don’t know the answer for sure, but two new findings announced this morning by NASA during a live discussion provide more tantalizing clues. The new results come from the Curiosity rover in Gale crater, and build on previous data collected by the rover. They concern two key findings – organics and methane, both of which could have significant implications for the possibility of life on Mars.
After many months of testing and devising new techniques since experiencing mechanical problems, NASA’s Curiosity rover is finally drilling again! The latest test this past weekend proved a success, producing the first drill hole in a rock in over a year. So it seems that the rover may now be ready to resume regular drilling operations again, which had been routine until the problems arose in December 2016.
Time goes by quickly when you are exploring Mars. It may not seem like it, but NASA’s Curiosity rover has now passed the 2,000-sol mark since its landing way back in August 2012. In those 5+ years, the rover has discovered evidence that Gale crater used to be home to a large non-acidic lake or series of lakes, with conditions suitable for life to have existed. It is still not known whether any Martian critters, most likely microscopic, ever did live there or elsewhere on the planet, but thanks to Curiosity and other robotic explorers, we now know that they certainly could have.
As we enter 2018, NASA’s Curiosity rover continues to be busy exploring on top of Vera Rubin Ridge, on the lower flanks of Mount Sharp. The rover is gradually making its way farther up the flanks, closing in the picturesque foothills in front of it. As it does so, Curiosity has made two new interesting discoveries, which may have implications for the possibility of life.
NASA’s Curiosity rover has been exploring Mars since 2012, analyzing numerous samples of rock and soil in Gale crater, which used to be a large lake a few billion years ago. Almost a year ago though, the rover’s drill stopped working properly and engineers have been busy figuring out how to fix it if possible. But it seems that they are now getting closer to resuming drilling, which is great news, especially since one of the main tasks is to study organic material the rover has found.
NASA’s Curiosity rover has found even more evidence for a previously habitable environment in Gale crater on Mars, according to a new study just published. The findings point to a history of hydrothermal activity in the region, which combined with other evidence for a past lake in the crater, makes an even more compelling case for possible ancient life.
For the silver foxes among us, we may remember where we were when JFK died or when Challenger breathed her last in the skies above the Kennedy Space Center (KSC). But for NASA’s Curiosity rover—which alighted on Mars, inside the yawning bowl of Gale Crater, five years ago, today—its recollection is forever imprinted. “Five years ago tonight,” the mission tweeted Saturday, “I was rappelling out of a jetpack onto the surface of #Mars. Where were you?” Continue reading
A true marvel of engineering, NASA’s Curiosity Rover has been exploring Gale Crater on Mars now for nearly five years, revealing different eras of the planet’s geological history in the various rocks and terrain it covers while learning to locate environments that can, or did, or could have supported life.
The question it set out to answer—was Mars ever habitable at some point in its history—was answered with a resounding yes several years ago by the rover, when it drilled into rocks and discovered key chemical ingredients for life. But in that time, its solid aluminum wheels have taken quite a beating. Continue reading
Was Mars ever habitable? Did life ever actually exist there? Those are two of the biggest questions for planetary scientists and slowly but surely, we are getting closer to answering them. Well, the first one has been, thanks to the numerous orbiters, landers and rovers which have been sent to the Red Planet over the past few decades. Mars was indeed much more habitable than it is now, in the distant past, although we still don’t know if it was actually inhabited, two different things. Much of the data confirming past habitability has come from the Curiosity rover, which has been exploring an ancient lakebed in Gale crater, and now new findings suggest that this lake offered multiple types of microbe-friendly environments simultaneously. This is good news for the possibility that some form of life, even if just microscopic, did once exist there or perhaps even still does.