Interesting factoid: The tread of Curiosity’s tires will leave behind an imprint that reads “JPL,” only it is written in Morse code, not plain English.
A UCLA scientist is proposing that Valles Marineris — the largest canyon on Mars and the solar system, was formed by plate tectonics.
“In the beginning, I did not expect plate tectonics, but the more I studied it, the more I realized Mars is so different from what other scientists anticipated,” Yin said. “I saw that the idea that it is just a big crack that opened up is incorrect. It is really a plate boundary, with horizontal motion. That is kind of shocking, but the evidence is quite clear. The shell is broken and is moving horizontally over a long distance. It is very similar to the Earth’s Dead Sea fault system, which has also opened up and is moving horizontally.”
The two plates divided by Mars’ Valles Marineris have moved approximately 93 miles horizontally relative to each other, Yin said. California’s San Andreas Fault, which is over the intersection of two plates, has moved about twice as much — but the Earth is about twice the size of Mars, so Yin said they are comparable.
An absolutely breathtaking view of the Milky Way as seen from Mars.
As one of the commenters noted, “Aaaaah……….it’s so beautiful. It seems like you could almost reach out and touch it!”
Curiosity views its surroundings. More images here.
In another story, there is speculation that Curiosity’s first image actually captured the dust cloud produced when the spacecraft’s Sky Crane/rockets crashed after placing the rover on the ground and then flying away.
Compare this image, taken right after landing, with this image, taken later. The splotch on the horizon has disappeared.
The first color image from Curiosity.
And from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, images (scroll down to Update II) showing all of Curiosity’s hardware scattered across the Martian surface. More here.
And here is a good overview of the possible directions Curiosity might roam in the coming days.
The first science images from Curiosity, including nearby Mt. Sharp. More here.
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter last night captured a spectacular image of Curiosity descending by parachute to the surface of Mars.
The first high resolution image from Curiosity.
This image isn’t that different from the first two, showing one of the rover’s wheels and the horizon. This camera is for guiding the rover’s movement and is not one of the cameras that will used for science. Nonetheless, it reconfirms that Curiosity is functioning as expected.
The United States has done it again: Curiosity has landed safely on Mars. Images have already been received, with the first showing one of the rover’s wheels on the ground. NASA has posted those first images. More here.
Tonight at 10:30 pm (Pacific), the new Martian rover Curiosity will hopefully touch down safely on the Martian surface to begin several years of research in the crater Gale.
What has been most amazing to me is the amount of interest in this landing by the press, especially the mainstream press. Normally these outlets don’t care that much for space exploration, a trend that began after the Apollo 11 landing in 1969 when it became trendy in liberal circles to down play space exploration so that “the money could instead be spent solving our problems here on Earth.”
Today, however, I count more than forty news articles on this upcoming landing, most of which come from mainstream sources. It seems that these outlets have finally discovered something that has been obvious from the beginning: the American public is fascinated with space exploration, and if you want to attract readers, it is better to provide coverage of what interests them rather than push a political agenda that few agree with.
Anyway, if you want to follow the landing live, go here for a full outline of options. Or go directly to NASA TV. Most of what you will see will the control room at JPL, with many engineers staring at computer screens waiting to find out if the landing was a success, about twenty minutes after it took place. This is because it will take that long for the communications signals to travel from Mars to the Earth. Essentially, Curiosity is on its own in this landing.
The competition heats up: India’s government has okayed the launch of an unmanned probe to Mars.
Curiosity’s journey and upcoming landing, a summary.
A new comparison by scientists of polygon-shaped formations on both the Earth and Mars suggests that both were formed underwater, providing further evidence that Mars once had oceans.
Good news: Mars Odyssey has successfully adjusted its orbit so as to provide up-to-the-minute communications when Curiosity lands on August 5.
Mars Odyssey went into safe mode on Wednesday for about 21 hours.
The orbiter has had increasing issues recently. Since it is used mostly as a communications satellite, this has impacts data downloads mostly from the rover Opportunity, and will a bigger problem once Curiosity arrives in August.
Opportunity’s view from Mars, a panorama taken during the rover’s recent winter stopover.
More water news from space: New data from Martian meteorites suggests that the interior of Mars has about the same amount of water as the Earth.
Mars Odyssey is out of safe mode and should be back in full operation by next week.
On exhibit in New York: A mock mission to Mars, built by an artist using, among other things, duct tape.
Engineers have successfully tested a spare reaction wheel on Mars Odyssey in their effort to bring the spacecraft back into full operation.
After more than 11 years of non-operational storage, the spare reaction wheel passed preliminary tests on Wednesday, June 12, spinning at up to 5,000 rotations per minute forward and backward. Odyssey engineers plan to substitute it for a reaction wheel they have assessed as no longer reliable. That wheel stuck for a few minutes last week, causing Odyssey to put itself into safe mode on June 8, Universal Time (June 7, Pacific Time).
Mars Odyssey put itself into safe mode on Friday when it detected problems with one of the three reaction wheels used to orient the spacecraft.
If this space probe goes down, it will make it more difficult to rely data back from Opportunity, now on the Martian surface, and Curiosity, due to land in two months.
Winter on Mars has finally ended, and Opportunity is on the move again.
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has found that some dunes on Mars move and change as much as those on Earth.
Curiosity takes a picture of itself on its way to Mars.
A trio of twisters captured on Mars in a single image.
Coiling lava found on Mars.
Mars: dry with only periodic short bursts of wetness.
Though this Science article outlines well the present “consensus” for Mars’s past climate, it also tries to make it sound like the planetary science community had once believed that Mars was once ocean-covered like the Earth and now has abandoned that consensus. To this I say bunk. Though many respected planetary scientists have looked for and found evidence for a past ocean on Mars, this possibility has always been controversial. From my readings most planetary scientists have always believed that Mars has generally been dry, interspersed with short periods when there is flowing liquid water on its surface. Even the advocates of the Martian ocean never proposed an Earthlike ocean, but a somewhat shallow and short-lived phenomenon.
