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

1 year later, Ingenuity helicopter still going strong on Mars

NASA’s Mars helicopter Ingenuity was supposed to be a museum piece by now. The little chopper landed with NASA’s Perseverance rover on the floor of Jezero Crater one year ago today (Feb. 18), tasked with showing that aerial exploration is possible on Mars despite the planet’s thin atmosphere. Ingenuity did just that over the course … Read more

After a year on Mars, NASA’s Perseverance rover is on course for big discoveries

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

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

COVID-19 patients face higher risk of brain fog and depression, even 1 year after infection | Science

Dozens of papers have examined the lingering mental health effects of COVID-19, but many have measured conditions such as depression and brain fog only a few months after infection. Now, a giant new study shows people who contracted COVID-19 faced substantially higher risks of neuropsychiatric ailments 1 year later, including brain fog, depression, and substance … Read more

Meet the four private Polaris Dawn astronauts SpaceX will launch into orbit this year

The billionaire commander of SpaceX’s Inspiration4 mission is flying back to space again with a set of new crewmates. Shift4 CEO Jared Isaacman and SpaceX jointly announced Monday (Feb. 14) the creation of Polaris Dawn, a mission set to fly a Crew Dragon to high Earth orbit in late 2022. The mission will be the … Read more

SpaceX’s Starship will reach orbit this year on road to Mars, Elon Musk says

SpaceX will hit a big milestone this year on its road to Mars, if all goes according to plan. The company is developing a giant rocket known as Starship to help make Mars colonization and a variety of other ambitious exploration feats possible. Starship prototypes have taken just a handful of low-altitude hops off Earth’s … Read more

COVID-19 takes serious toll on heart health—a full year after recovery | Science

From very early in the pandemic, it was clear that SARS-CoV-2 can damage the heart and blood vessels while people are acutely ill. Patients developed clots, heart inflammation, arrythmias, and heart failure. Now, the first large study to assess cardiovascular outcomes 1 year after SARS-CoV-2 infection has demonstrated that the virus’ impact is often lasting. … Read more

China’s Tianwen 1 Mars mission marks 1st full year in orbit

It’s been a year since China’s first-ever independent interplanetary mission reached Mars, and in that time, Tianwen 1 has made major achievements while also delivering a number of surprises. The Tianwen 1 spacecraft entered orbit around the Red Planet on Feb. 10, 2021. Shortly after, the China National Space Administration released epic footage of the … Read more

Pig organ transplants: Team in China hopes to start first trial of pig skin grafts this year

After completing a human trial of modified pig skin grafts last year, a team in China hopes to start the first pig organ transplant trial later this year Health 9 February 2022 By Michael Le Page Trials using pig skin for human grafts could make the procedure more common wulingyun/Getty Images Several groups are vying … Read more