Latest Mars Science Laboratory Stories

WASHINGTON, Dec. 4, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Building on the success of Curiosity's Red Planet landing, NASA has announced plans for a robust multi-year Mars program, including a new robotic science rover set to launch in 2020. This announcement affirms the agency's commitment to a bold exploration program that meets our nation's scientific and human exploration objectives. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) "The Obama administration is committed to...

PASADENA, Calif., Dec. 3, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA's Mars Curiosity rover has used its full array of instruments to analyze Martian soil for the first time, and found a complex chemistry within the Martian soil. Water and sulfur and chlorine-containing substances, among other ingredients, showed up in samples Curiosity's arm delivered to an analytical laboratory inside the rover. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) Detection of the substances...

[ Video 1 ] | Video 2 ] Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online NASA has finally opened up its tightly sealed lips and said that its Curiosity rover has found evidence of simple organic compounds on Mars. NASA announced at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco today that its Mars Curiosity rover has completed its first analysis of Martian soil, finding a complex chemistry within the Martian soil. The space agency said its Curiosity rover has found...

NEW YORK, Dec. 3, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- It's a city! It's a state! It's a country! No - it's a planet! Breaking with tradition, Oxford University Press has selected Mars as the Place of the Year 2012. Mars, visible to the naked eye, has fascinated and intrigued for centuries but only in the past 50 years has space exploration allowed scientists to better understand the red planet. On August 6, 2012, NASA's Curiosity Rover landed on Mars' Gale Crater; by transmitting its...

[WATCH VIDEO: Curiosity Headed To Mars] Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Monday (Nov 26) marked the one year anniversary since Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) spacecraft was launched carrying NASA’s next-generation Mars Curiosity rover. After more than 7 months on a journey to the Red Planet, Curiosity touched down on August 6, 2012 in what has been referred to as “seven minutes of terror.” In the 16 weeks since its landing in the Gale Crater on Mars,...

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online The European Space Agency's Mars Express has relayed scientific data from NASA's Curiosity rover for the first time. The data from Curiosity included detailed images of "Rocknest 3" taken by the rover's ChemCam Remote Micro-Imager camera. ChemCam consists of the camera along with a Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectrometer, which fires a laser at targets and analyzes the chemical composition of vaporized material. Curiosity...

NASA/JPL Report A Martian dust storm that NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has been tracking since last week has also produced atmospheric changes detectable by rovers on Mars. Using the orbiter's Mars Color Imager, Bruce Cantor of Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, began observing the storm on Nov. 10, and subsequently reported it to the team operating NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity. The storm came no closer than about 837 miles (1,347 kilometers) from Opportunity,...

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online NPR reported on Tuesday that NASA has some exciting news about a discovery with its Curiosity rover that could be "one for the history books." According to NPR's Joe Palca, NASA is keeping its lips sealed on a Mars discovery until everything is verified. After visiting with John Grotzinger, the principal investigator for the rover mission, Palca found out that the data coming down from Curiosity now "is gonna be one for the history...

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online It may not be in the company of little Martians, but NASA's Curiosity is determined to celebrate Thanksgiving this year with, or without, the company of extra-terrestrials. For its Thanksgiving festivities, the rover plans to use its Mast Camera (Mastcam) to examine possible routes and targets to the east. NASA said its priority is to choose a rock for the first use of the rover's hammering drill, which will collect samples of...

HOUSTON, Nov. 19, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A team of NASA scientists and their colleagues have found evidence from meteorites that Mars and Earth had a similar origin, but then the two planets evolved quite differently. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) Based on their analyses of two Martian meteorites, researchers in the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Directorate at NASA's Johnson Space Center have concluded that water in the...