Perseverance touched down in February on the floor of the 28-mile-wide Jezero Crater, which was picked primarily because previous observations by Mars orbiters suggested that it hosted a big lake and a river delta in the ancient past. Photos snapped by Perseverance early in its mission, before the car-sized robot even started roving, confirm this…
NASA has selected five U.S. companies to help the agency enable a steady pace of crewed trips to the lunar surface under the agency’s Artemis program. The awards under the Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships Appendix N broad agency announcement are firm fixed-price, milestone-based contracts. The total combined value for the awards is $146 million, and the…
NASA’s InSight lander has detected its three most powerful marsquakes yet, potentially giving scientists an even clearer picture of the Red Planet’s interior. InSight spotted 4.2- and 4.1-magnitude temblors on Aug. 25, then picked up another roughly 4.2-magnitude quake on Sept. 18 that lasted for nearly 90 minutes, NASA officials announced on Wednesday (Sept. 22).…
Il rover della NASA Perseverance ha raccolto con successo i primi due campioni di roccia marziana fornendo già agli scienziati la possibilità di elaborare alcune deduzioni sulle caratteristiche della regione del Cratere Jezero. Le analisi su questi due campioni e sui dati del primo tentativo di campionamento dello scorso 6 agosto finito male, potrebbero aiutare il team…
The car-sized rover sealed a titanium tube containing a drilled-out core of a Red Planet rock on Monday , marking a big milestone for its ambitious mission. If all goes according to plan, Perseverance will collect several dozen more such samples, all of which will be hauled to Earth for analysis a decade or so from now. «Just as the Apollo…
New data from satellite trackers now suggests Chang’e-5 has left its orbit around Sun-Earth L1 and is destined for a lunar flyby early September 9 Eastern time. It was noted that Chang’e-5 may have altered its orbit Aug. BACC has not yet provided an update on the plans for Chang’e-5. Potential maneuvers such as entering lunar orbit, heading for…
Food security – the consistent availability and affordability of food – is a basic human need, yet it remains elusive for billions of people around the world. In Southeast Asia, rising temperatures, increasingly variable weather, and low water levels along the Mekong River threaten livelihoods and food production. This data is the ultimate tool in building capacity within food systems –…
This week, a tool on the rover’s 7-foot-long robotic arm will abrade the surface of a rock nicknamed «Rochette,» allowing scientists to look inside and determine whether they want to capture a sample with the rover’s coring bit. Slightly thicker than a pencil, the sample would be sealed in one of the 42 remaining titanium tubes aboard the…
Answering two key questions would go a long way toward overcoming that hurdle: Would particle radiation pose too grave a threat to human life throughout a round trip to the red planet? And, could the very timing of a mission to Mars help shield astronauts and the spacecraft from the radiation? «This study shows that…
China’s Zhurong rover has completed its primary three-month-long expedition on Mars but is set to continue exploring the Red Planet. Zhurong completed its 90-sol mission in Mars’ Utopia Planitia on Aug. Zhurong will continue to cross this area, which is thought to be below the shoreline of an ancient ocean in southern Utopia Planitia. CNSA…