Latest Gusev crater Stories
NASA said on Tuesday that it is calling it quits on trying to revive its Mars rover Spirit. The rover has been incommunicado for over a year despite daily calls by NASA. The reason for Spirit's silence may never be known, but the space agency said it is likely the Martian winter damaged its electronics, preventing the six-wheel rover from waking up. NASA tried every trick to listen for Spirit, but project manager John Callas of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said the last commands will...
In its six-and-a-half years on Mars, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity had never seen a dust devil before this month, despite some systematic searches in past years and the fact that its twin rover, Spirit, has seen dozens of dust devils at its location halfway around the planet.A tall column of swirling dust appears in a routine image that Opportunity took with its panoramic camera on July 15. The rover took the image in the drive direction, east-southeastward, right after a drive of...
The Mars Express High Resolution Stereo Camera imaged a region close to Ma'adim Vallis, one of the largest canyons on Mars, finding craters, lava flows and tectonic features.After Valles Marineris, Ma'adim Vallis is one of the largest canyons on Mars. The region, lying south-east of Ma'adim Vallis, was imaged on 24 December 2008. The pictures are centered at about 29°S and 182°E and have a ground resolution of 15 m/pixel.Ma'adim Vallis is located between the volcanic region of Tharsis,...
Six years after landing on Mars, the rover Spirit is bogged down in Martian soil, researchers at Cornell University said, but Opportunity carries on. The vehicle (Spirit) seems to be in a unique combination of soft, sandy material and slopes that we haven't encountered yet, said Jim Bell, professor of astronomy and leader of the mission's Pancam color camera team. We're not calling this purgatory for Spirit yet, but it has that potential, Bell said. Spirit and its twin, Opportunity, have...
Tempe, Ariz. -- Deposits of nearly pure silica discovered by the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit in Gusev Crater formed when volcanic steam or hot water (or maybe both) percolated through the ground. Such deposits are found around hydrothermal vents like those in Yellowstone National Park. That's the conclusion of planetary scientists working with data collected by the rover's Miniature Thermal Emission Spectrometer (Mini-TES), developed at Arizona State University.The silica discovery,...
Hi Mom! Spirit, the dusty Mars rover twin with the bad leg, shows up in a photo taken by the University of Arizona's orbiting HiRISE camera as the rover heads for a safe winter refuge. The long-lived twin NASA rovers Spirit and Opportunity are on opposite sides of Mars, sniffing around and taking pictures as they creep about the planet. They relay their findings through one of the Mars orbiting satellites that sends signals back to Earth, where they are picked up by the Deep Space Network and...
PASADENA, Calif. - Two months after sky-darkening dust from severe storms nearly killed NASA's Mars exploration rovers, the solar powered robots are awake and ready to continue their mission. Opportunity's planned descent into the giant Victoria Crater was delayed, but now the rover is preparing to drive into the 800-meter-diameter crater (half-mile-diameter) as early as Sept. 11. Spirit, Opportunity's rover twin, also survived the global dust storms. The rovers are 43 months into missions...
This 360-degree view, called the "McMurdo" panorama, comes from the panoramic camera (Pancam) on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit. From April through October 2006, Spirit has stayed on a small hill known as "Low Ridge." There, the rover's solar panels are tilted toward the sun to maintain enough solar power for Spirit to keep making scientific observations throughout the winter on southern Mars. This view of the surroundings from Spirit's "Winter Haven" is...
LOS ANGELES -- The Mars rover Spirit has hit a home run by landing in a rugged plateau dubbed "Home Plate," but scientists are still trying to decipher its geology. The six-wheeled Spirit reached the northern edge of the broad mesa last week about four months after climbing down from a Martian hill as tall as the Statue of Liberty. Scientists believe "Home Plate" - which stands about 6 feet high - holds important geologic clues to the Red Planet's past. So far, scientists...
JPL -- NASA's Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, have been working overtime to help scientists better understand ancient environmental conditions on the red planet. The rovers are also generating excitement about the exploration of Mars outlined in NASA's Vision for Space Exploration. The rovers continue to find new variations of bedrock in areas they are exploring on opposite sides of Mars. The geological information they have collected adds evidence about ancient Martian environments that...
