NASA may not be ready to take passengers to Mars, but you'll be able to put your name down in the meantime - quite literally. The space agency is offering "frequent flyer" points along with souvenir boarding passes to members of the public for a trip to Mars, as part of its push around the Mars 2020 mission.
NASA has revealed the spacecraft that the new Mars rover will use to travel to the red planet in 2020, as the US space agency continues to pave the way for an eventual manned mission. Mars 2020 will see a brand new rover set loose on the surface of the planet, complete with a toolkit of all-new instrumentation to do research.
NASA has had a spacecraft orbiting Mars called the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter or MRO since March 10, 2006. The spacecraft has been circling the planet at about 2 miles per second and collecting daily science data about the planet's surface and atmosphere. NASA has announced a milestone for the MRO that was reached this week.
Lockheed Martin has announced that the heat shield for NASA's Mars 2020 rover has passed a critical testing milestone. The component was exposed to "flight-like thermal conditions," according to the company, which confirmed its "physical integrity." The heat shield will be used to help protect the rover as it enters the Martian atmosphere.
NASA has shared some images of sunrise and sunset on Mars that were snapped by the InSight lander. The spacecraft captured the images on April 24 and April 25 at the 145-day mark of the rover's mission. NASA says that the images were taken at 5:30 a.m. and then at 6:30 p.m. in local Mars time. A camera under the deck of the lander also caught some clouds drifting across the Marian sky.
NASA's InSight lander may have detected its first quake on Mars, the space agency has announced. The 'marsquake' was recorded as a faint seismic signal by the rover's Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) instrument on April 6. This is the first time humans have recorded quaking that originates from within the planet rather than from something on the surface.
NASA's Curiosity rover has been cruising the surface of Mars for a long time now. One of the missions that the rover has been gearing up for is the very first drilling sample gathering to be conducted on what has been called the "clay-bearing unit." That is a large rock that is also called "Aberlady." The announcement marks the first time that curiosity has drilled into this area.
In 2013, NASA's Curiosity rover detected a methane emission on Mars, something more recently determined to be cyclical based on the planet's seasons. The first emission was detected by the rover in the Gale Crater in June 2013 followed soon after by another emission. Now, years later, a major development in this research has been announced: independent confirmation.
NASA has shared a new Mars image, but instead of featuring the Red Planet's dusty orange landscape, we're greeted with far more unusual sight: "brain terrain." Scientists gave this mysterious surface its nickname due to its texture, which resembles the color and folds of a brain. The space agency has shared a high-resolution version of the image for the public to download.
China has plans to launch four deep space missions by 2030, and one of those projects will include launching its own Mars lander. The nation anticipates launching multiple Mars probes, the first scheduled for a 2020 launch with the goal of putting a lander on the Red Planet. Assuming it is successful, the rover would join NASA's still-operational Curiosity and InSight landers.
China has a rover on the moon's far side right now called Chang'e 4, and it has shared photos of the far side in the past. China has plans for more moon missions in the future with the launch of the Chang'e 5 planned for later this year. China also wants to go to the moon and is working on a Mars rover for 2020.
Last year Mars Express detected water under Mars' south pole - now it's become more clear to which extent that water represented Mars' watery past. According to new findings with the ESA and Mars Express here in the present, early Mars had water - lots and lots of water, on the surface, in liquid form. Researchers found evidence of massive amounts of water by studying 24 individual deep, enclosed craters in the planet's northern hemisphere. They found features that couldn't have formed in any way other than in the presence of liquid water.