After eight years on Mars, Opportunity is still going strong – and still discovering new things! “Completely new” things, in fact, to paraphrase principal investigator Steve Squyres… While roaming about on Cape York, a large rise on the southwestern edge of Endeavour crater, Opportunity spied a bright vein of rock sticking up through the scrabbly…
Tag: Mars
Martian Motion
Can’t see the video below? Watch on YouTube here. The Planetary Society’s Emily Lakdawalla got a chance to hone her animation skills further with this cool sequence showing clouds drifting over the surface of Mars, made from images taken by the Mars Express orbiter back in October 2010. Awesome! The region shown here is known…
A Look Inside Mars
This new HiRISE image gives us a deeper look into Mars… literally! Earlier this year a crater was spotted on Mars with a dark spot at its center. When the HiRISE team at the University of Arizona took a closer look with the MRO’s high-resolution camera they saw that the spot is actually a 115-foot-wide…
On The Rim Of Endeavour!
After almost three years of travel across the cold, rusty plains of Mars the last remaining functioning rover on Mars has finally reached her goal: the rim of the giant Endeavour Crater! Congratulations Opportunity and the MER team! “Our arrival at this destination is a reminder that these rovers have continued far beyond the original…
From the LITD Archives: Face to Face
Remember the photo of the mysterious “face on Mars” taken by the Viking spacecraft in 1976? Well here’s the same landform, imaged by the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Just goes to show that things aren’t always what they seem. The surprisingly human-looking “face” was really just a trick of the light combined…
Curiosity in Action
Can’t see the video below? Click here. Here’s a very cool video, an animation created by the folks at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory showing the descent, landing and operation of the next rover headed to Mars: the Mars Science Laboratory, a.k.a. “Curiosity.” Curiosity just recently arrived in Florida after a cross-country flight from JPL’s facility…
Mars by Student Request
This nearly 600-foot-wide pit is located on the southeastern side of Pavonis Mons, a large extinct volcano in Mars’ Tharsis region. This detailed image was taken by the HiRISE camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The idea for this close-up was suggested to the HiRISE team by a team of seventh graders at Evergreen Middle…
Watching Over Spirit
As a poignant reminder that Spirit is now officially at rest in its permanent position next to Home Plate, the HiRISE team released this image today showing the sun glinting brightly off the rover’s solar panels, visible to the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter high above. Even though it may have fallen silent, Spirit will always be…
The Sun Sets on Spirit
After seven years on Mars it is now time to say good night to the rover named Spirit. Since becoming irreparably stuck in the soft Martian soil near a low rise dubbed “Home Plate” nearly two years ago, Spirit has weathered a frigid Martian winter that may have damaged its electronics. Attempts to communicate with…
Mars’ Underground Atmosphere
Scientists have spotted an underground reservoir near Mars’ south pole the size of Lake Superior… except that this lake is filled with frozen carbon dioxide – a.k.a. “dry ice”! A recent report by scientists at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, CO reveals variations in Mars’ axial tilt can change how much carbon dioxide gets…
Slicing Into Mars’ Past
Deep gashes – called grabens – slice across the surface in the Nili Fossae region of Mars, seen above in an image from the Mars Express orbiter taken in February 2008. A German word meaning “ditch”, a graben is a downthrust strip of land bordered by scarps on either side. They are typically caused by…
Icy Spiders
Near Mars’ polar regions, spidery cracks and crevasses in the surface hold the last remnants of the winter season’s carbon dioxide frost – a.k.a. “dry ice” – which will eventually evaporate into the Martian atmosphere as CO2 gas. This process is seen on Earth only in specialized manmade situations such as when used as…
Lights in the Dark 