NASA currently expects to land the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover on the surface of Mars on February 18, 2021. Once the rover is on the surface and working, it will begin to search for traces of microscopic life that could be billions of years old. The rover is fitted with an instrument called PIXL, which is a lunchbox-sized device at the end of the seven-foot-long robotic arm fitted to the rover.
In February of next year, the NASA Perseverance Rover will land on Mars in the Jezero Crater. Soon after its landing, it will begin to gather soil samples that will be returned to earth for study a little more than a decade later. Scientists are hoping that they can find evidence of past life on Mars hidden in the soil samples.
Japan's previously announced Martian Moons eXploration mission will include capturing the Red Planet and its moons in 8K resolution, JAXA has announced. The mission, which is scheduled to go live the same year NASA will return humans to the Moon, is a joint effort between JAXA and Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK). Under their partnership, the two entities plan to develop the Super Hi-Vision Camera for snapping these images from orbit.
NASA has pulled an old Mars image from its archives, bringing it to the attention of a new generation of space enthusiasts. The image was captured by one of the space agency's earlier Martian rovers, one that operated for less than three months before retiring in the late 1990s. What makes this particular image so unique? It reveals 'twin peaks' that, NASA only realized in retrospect, had been hiding in plain sight for two decades.
Following its recent successful launch of the spacecraft, NASA's Perseverance rover is on its way to Mars, a journey that will take several months. All will be quiet during this time, but that doesn't mean you have to wait for more information. NASA has launched a free online tool that enables anyone to monitor the rover's journey in real-time, read information about the journey, and see which celestial body the spacecraft is closest to at any given moment.
We've all seen videos and pictures of avalanches, at least ones that happen on Earth. Though they happen in many places, they're all the same: huge amounts of some material breaks free from a tall structure, causing a cascading effect in which massive amounts of the material roll downward. This is often associated with huge amounts of snow, but can involve things like ice and rock, as well. Thanks to NASA, we know what this kind of event looks like on Mars.
Scientists and visionaries around the world foresee a future where mankind colonizes the moon and Mars. One major question that has to be answered before colonization can happen is how to create structures that humans can live inside and be protected from the radiation and lack of habitable atmosphere in both locations. Researchers from the universities of Bologna and Padua have studied the subsurface cavities that lava created underground on Mars and the Moon. They have determined that they are wide enough that they could host planetary bases.
NASA says that the tiny helicopter attached to the Perseverance Mars rover was fired up and recharged in space for the first time. The event took place following its first week in space, according to the space agency, which says that all six batteries on the helicopter were analyzed and charged to a level of 35-percent. This was necessary to keep the batteries in optimal health during the multi-month trip, NASA says.
NASA has spent years investigating Mars up close and personal with its various rovers and spacecraft, the latter of which includes the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). This spacecraft orbits Mars, using onboard cameras to snap images of the Red Planet below. This has resulted in a huge number of images, some of which are so strikingly beautiful that they look like art. NASA is showing off some of the best of these images and anyone can download them.
NASA is doing some very cool things on and in orbit above Mars. One of the spacecraft orbiting the Red Planet is called MAVEN. Over the last couple of years, MAVEN made some observations of the Martian atmosphere in the ultraviolet spectrum and discovered something very cool. When the atmosphere is viewed in the ultraviolet spectrum, the sky has nightglow that pulses in a green color invisible to the naked eye.
NASA has been recording seismic information from inside the surface of Mars using the InSight Lander's seismometer. NASA says the data record is the first direct evidence of key boundaries inside the Red Planet's interior. The goal was to help planetary scientists understand how rocky planets are formed.
Researchers from the University of British Columbia say that a large number of the valley networks guarding the surface of Mars were carved by water melting beneath the glacial ice, not by free-flowing rivers. Many scientists believe that ancient Mars was covered with a large amount of liquid water, including flowing rivers.