The ExoMars spacecraft is almost complete. A joint mission between ESA and Roscosmos, it begins with the launch of the ExoMars orbiter in 2016 and carries an aerodynamically designed capsule containing a robotic lander.
Getting to Mars, landing there safely and searching for life is a huge scientific and technical challenge.
ExoMars 2016 will send back information about the Martian … Read the rest of this article
NASA will land in Mars, Pennsylvania Friday, June 19 to celebrate Mars’ New Year with Red Planet enthusiasts of the Keystone State for three days of science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM) activities. The goal is to encourage young people to pursue careers in in these critical fields of study that will enable NASA’s journey to Mars.
At the … Read the rest of this article
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden signed agreements with two European partners to advance Mars exploration and our journey to the Red Planet during meetings Tuesday at the Paris Air Show.
Bolden and Jean-Yves Le Gall, president of the French space agency, Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES), signed an agreement for France to provide the mast for the SuperCam component of NASA’s … Read the rest of this article
There was no tape draped across a finish line, but NASA is celebrating a win. The agency’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity completed its first Red Planet marathon Tuesday — 26.219 miles (42.195 kilometers) – with a finish time of roughly 11 years and two months.
“This is the first time any human enterprise has exceeded the distance of a … Read the rest of this article
A team using the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument suite aboard NASA’s Curiosity rover has made the first detection of nitrogen on the surface of Mars from release during heating of Martian sediments.
The nitrogen was detected in the form of nitric oxide, and could be released from the breakdown of nitrates during heating. Nitrates are a class of … Read the rest of this article
After avoiding use of the rover’s flash memory for three months, the team operating NASA’s 11-year-old Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has reformatted the vehicle’s flash memory banks and resumed storing some data overnight for transmitting later.
The team received confirmation from Mars on March 20 that the reformatting completed successfully. The rover switched to updated software earlier this month that … Read the rest of this article
NASA and Microsoft have teamed up to develop software called OnSight, a new technology that will enable scientists to work virtually on Mars using wearable technology called Microsoft HoloLens.
Developed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, OnSight will give scientists a means to plan and, along with the Mars Curiosity rover, conduct science operations on the Red Planet.… Read the rest of this article
The UK-led Beagle-2 Mars lander, which hitched a ride on ESA’s Mars Express mission and was lost on Mars since 2003, has been found in images taken by a NASA orbiter at the Red Planet.
Beagle-2 was released from its mother craft on 19 December 2003 and was due to land six days later. But nothing was heard from the … Read the rest of this article
Although Mars is a very alien planet, some aspects of its geology are surprisingly familiar. This Mars Express image shows a snippet of a region of Mars filled with cliffs, trenches, faults, giant plateaus and volcanoes.
The flowing cracks and fault-like lines in this image form part of the Claritas Rupes escarpment, a 950 km-long network of steep cliffs and … Read the rest of this article
NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover has measured a tenfold spike in methane, an organic chemical, in the atmosphere around it and detected other organic molecules in a rock-powder sample collected by the robotic laboratory’s drill.
“This temporary increase in methane — sharply up and then back down — tells us there must be some relatively localized source,” said Sushil … Read the rest of this article
The Sun Now (Visible light)
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The Sun Now (H-Alpha light)
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Aurora Oval
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Aurora Oval
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