12 amazing photos from the Perseverance rover’s 1st year on Mars

(Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Seán Doran) NASA’s Perseverance rover has now been exploring Mars for a full year, and it has captured some amazing photos during that stretch. The car-sized Perseverance rover touched down inside the Red Planet’s 28-mile-wide (45 kilometers) Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, 2021. The rover is searching for signs of past Mars life … Read more

NASA Eyes Electric Car Tech for Future Moon Rovers

Of the many “firsts” from NASA’s Apollo program of lunar exploration, one often overlooked is that the Apollo missions included the first—and so far only—times that humans have driven on another world. Presaging today’s eco-conscious market for carbon-neutral transportation, Apollo’s battery-powered lunar roving vehicles were all-electric as well. Astronaut David Scott, who was the first … Read more

What We Learned from the Perseverance Rover’s First Year on Mars

One year ago NASA’s Perseverance rover plunged through the Martian atmosphere and safely landed in Jezero Crater, a 45-kilometer-wide gouge that scientists suspect once hosted a deep, long-lived lake. The rover’s ultimate target is near Jezero’s western edge: a large, fan-shaped pile of sediments that washed into the basin through a notch in the crater … Read more

Celebrate Perseverance rover’s 1-year ‘Marsiversary’ with these events

The Perseverance rover is about to celebrate one year on Mars, and NASA wants you to be part of the party. The space agency and mission team members are holding a variety of events around the country to mark the “Marsiversary” of the life-hunting, sample-caching Perseverance and the tiny helicopter Ingenuity, which touched down with … Read more

Rugged Mars has taken big bites out of Curiosity rover’s wheels (photos)

NASA’s Curiosity rover has left plenty of marks on Mars over the past nine-plus years, and the Red Planet is returning the favor. The rugged landscape inside Mars’ Gale Crater has taken some substantial bites out of Curiosity’s six aluminum wheels, as CNET recently pointed out. The damage looks dramatic, but don’t panic; Curiosity should … Read more