Composed of more than 1,000 images taken during the 2019 Thanksgiving holiday and carefully assembled over the ensuing months, the composite contains 1.8 billion pixels of Martian landscape. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/curiosity-mars-rover-highest-resolution-panorama…
Tag: Martian surface
Curiosity Mars rover snaps its highest-resolution panorama yet
NASA’s Curiosity rover has captured its highest-resolution panorama yet of the Martian surface. Composed of more than 1,000 images taken during the 2019 Thanksgiving holiday and carefully assembled over the ensuing months, the composite contains 1.8 billion pixels of Martian landscape. The rover’s Mast Camera, or Mastcam, used its telephoto lens to produce the panorama; meanwhile, it relied on its medium-angle…
Marsquakes: InSight lander shows active faults in planet’s crust
The results from its NASA’s Mars InSight lander’s first 10 months on the martian surface have been published in a series of papers. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/mars-quakes-insight-lander-shows-active-faults…
Mars Is a Seismically Active World, First Results From NASA’s InSight Lander Reveal
The first results from NASA’s quake-hunting InSight Mars lander just came out, and they reveal that Mars is a seismically active planet. Space.com reports: Martian seismicity falls between that of the moon and that of Earth, [says InSight principal investigator Bruce Banerdt, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory]. “In fact, it’s probably close to the kind of seismic activity you would expect…
Mars InSight lander to push on top of the ‘mole’
After nearly a year of trying to dig into the Martian surface, the heat probe belonging to NASA’s InSight lander is about to get a push. The mission team plans to command the scoop on InSight’s robotic arm to press down on the “mole,” the mini pile driver designed to hammer itself as much as 16 feet (5 meters) down. They…
Water in the shadows of boulders on Mars?
A new study from the Planetary Research Institute suggests that briny water could temporarily form on Mars’ surface in the shadows of boulders for just a few days each Martian year. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/water-on-mars-brines-boulders-sublimation…
Could salt-loving microbes explain Mars’ methane?
New laboratory studies – simulating conditions on the planet Mars and using salt-loving microbes – suggest that similar organisms could be producing Mars’ mysterious methane. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/salt-loving-microbes-methane-on-mars…
Bringing Rocks Back From Mars
The Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission intended to achieve all this will require three launches from Earth over the course of a decade, and five separate machines. From a report: The organisations involved — America’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA, and the European Space Agency, ESA — are each responsible for specific craft in the chain of what David Parker,…
Spacecraft spies river relic on Mars
These images from the Mars Express spacecraft show an ancient, dried-up river system, one of the longest valley networks on Mars. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/mars-river-relic-images…
InSight lander records eerie sounds on Mars
NASA scientists have released new audio clips of the otherworldly sounds picked up on the Martian surface. While we have long been treated to stunning… Source: https://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/news/330945/insight-lander-records-eerie-sounds-on-mars…