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A photo of the “mineral flower” alongside other diagenetic features on the surface of Mars captured by NASA’s Curiosity rover on Feb. 25. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS) NASA’s Curiosity rover recently got up close and personal with a tiny, flower-like mineral deposit on the surface of Mars. The beautiful branching rock, which is just 0.4 inch … Read more
Europe’s ExoMars rover, built to search for traces of life on the Red Planet, is unlikely to launch as planned in September aboard a Russian rocket as a result of sanctions rolled out by European countries in response to Russian aggression in Ukraine. The ExoMars mission, which comprises the Trace Gas Orbiter (in orbit around … Read more
Europe’s ExoMars rover, built to search for traces of life on the Red Planet, is unlikely to launch as planned in September aboard a Russian rocket as a result of sanctions rolled out by European countries in response to Russian aggression in Ukraine. The ExoMars mission, which comprises the Trace Gas Orbiter (in orbit around … Read more
The European Space Agency is due to launch its Rosalind Franklin ExoMars rover on a Russian rocket this September, while satellites belonging to a company part-owned by the UK government are set to catch a Russian ride on 4 March Space 25 February 2022 By Jonathan O’Callaghan An artist’s impression of the Rosalind Franklin rover, … Read more
China’s Yutu 2 rover has made yet another curious discovery during its travels on the far side of the moon, this time turning up a pair of translucent glass globules. The rover’s panoramic camera spotted the two glass spheres as it drove across the surface of Von Kármán crater on the far side of the … Read more
The Curiosity rover took a picture of something pretty enticing this week on the surface of Mars. While the object in question looks like a tiny little flower or maybe even some type of organic feature, the rover team confirmed this object is a mineral formation, with delicate structures that formed by minerals precipitating from water. … Read more
China’s Yutu-2 mission has made another fascinating discovery on the far side of the Moon. Glistening amid the dry, gray dust, the rover’s panoramic camera picked out two small intact spheres of translucent glass. Such spherules can record information about the Moon’s history, including the composition of its mantle and impact events. Yutu-2 was … Read more
The Perseverance rover’s second year on Mars should be even more action-packed than the first. The car-sized Perseverance rover landed inside the Red Planet’s Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, 2021, tasked with searching for signs of ancient Mars life and collecting dozens of samples for future return to Earth. The 28-mile-wide (45 kilometers) Jezero is … Read more
NASA’s Curiosity rover just aced a bit of atmospheric science on Mars. The Curiosity rover, now nearing its 10th year of exploring the Red Planet, took imagery of clouds drifting over its exploration site on Mount Sharp (Aeolis Mons) with an aim to measuring their speed. But it wasn’t an easy task, NASA’s Jet Propulsion … Read more
The Perseverance rover’s self-driving function is working just great on Mars, according to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The mission, not quite at one Earth year on Mars, has topped a new distance record for Red Planet rovers. On Friday (Feb. 4) Perseverance made the longest drive completed in a single Martian day, or sol, traveling … Read more