It may be a surprise to learn that NASA's Curiosity rover has been exploring the Red Planet for nine years. Over the years, as the rover has been exploring Mars, it has encountered a vastly changing landscape. Curiosity is currently exploring Mount Sharp, a mountain standing five miles high inside the Gale Crater basin.
Scientists are eager to look for any form of life on the surface of Mars. The consensus is that sometime in the distant past, Mars may have been hospitable to life of some type. Some also believe that Mars might currently harbor microbial life and point to increased levels of methane seen in some areas as proof.
A dramatic photo of clouds forming above a distinctively craggy Mars cliff-face has revealed an unexpected detail about the red planet, with the Curiosity rover helping answer a two year old mystery. The NASA Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) which manages Curiosity - which has been on Mars since mid-2012 - first spotted the unusual cloud formation one Martian year ago, but its existence went against what was expected from our neighboring planet's weather.
The Curiosity rover has been conducting its science operations and exploring the surface of the Red Planet for a long time. NASA recently shared an aerial image taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter that shows curiosity as it's climbing a rocky outcrop called Mont Mercou. Curiosity is exploring the rocky outcrop, which got its nickname from a French mountain, because the area beyond it is rich in sulfates.
There are no service stations on the surface of Mars, meaning any rover that suffers a component failure on the Red Planet will remain unrepaired. Curiosity has been exploring the surface of Mars for a long time, and mission controllers have a plan in place to help keep the rover mobile even if wheel wear becomes a problem. Should a wheel become damaged, JPL says that it is ready to use a "wheel shedding" maneuver to get rid of the defective wheel.
NASA has multiple rovers and spacecraft on and around Mars, searching for signs of past life, water, and performing various science experiments. One of the rovers is the NASA Curiosity Mars rover, and it recently approached a rock formation that scientists call "Mont Mercou." That nickname was taken from a mountain in France. The Martian Mont Mercou is a rock outcropping that stands about 20 feet tall. Curiosity has imaged the rock outcropping in a new selfie and snapped a pair of panoramas offering a 3D view.
NASA is celebrating a milestone for the Curiosity Rover that's been on the surface of the Red Planet since August 6, 2012. Curiosity has now spent 3000 Martian days, or sols, exploring Mars. Curiosity has been rolling up Mount Sharp, which is a three-mile-tall mountain it has been exploring since 2014.
NASA has announced that its Mars Curiosity rover has started its 'summer trip' on the Red Planet, kicking things off with a new panorama featuring the Greenheugh Pediment. During its road trip, NASA says the rover will cover around one mile of the Martian surface, ending back at a tall mountain called Mount Sharp that it has been exploring for several years.
A software glitch left NASA's Curiosity rover frozen in place, forcing scientists to come up with a fix so that the robot could resume its exploration of Mars. The multi-billion dollar rover has been operating on Mars since mid-2012, unleashing a battery of tests and tools onto the red planet from atop its six-wheeled platform.
On October 11, NASA's Curiosity rover snapped a new selfie showing itself off following the completion of what the space agency says was a 'special' chemistry experiment. The selfie was taken on Mars' Sol 2,553 at the planet's Glen Etive, a clay-bearing unit where Curiosity drilled a couple of holes into the ground. Visible behind the rover is the upper part of Mount Sharp and Vera Rubin Ridge.
We take for granted a lot of gases here on Earth, including our precious oxygen. Even less so gases like methane, which is mostly a waste product of certain living organisms. But when you find unusually high levels of that substances in a planet bereft of life but believed to have once hosted life, it's a pretty big deal. That's the reason why scientists at NASA were more than happy to spend their weekend at work to analyze and do more tests with the data that the Curiosity Rover just sent them from Mars.
Back in the Apollo mission days to the moon in 1972, the moon rover that the astronauts drove around had instruments on board to measure the gravity of the surface. Scientists wanted to measure the gravity on the surface of Mars, but the Curiosity rover lacks sensors for such measurements. That didn't stop researchers from figuring out a way to measure gravity with what Curiosity does have on board.