Latest Mars Science Laboratory Stories
Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Stanford University researchers, working with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and MIT, have designed a new robotic platform that could be used to explore the moons of Mars. The platform consists of a mother spacecraft and anywhere from one to several spiky, spherical rovers that can be deployed on the surface of a moon, such as Phobos, where they can hop, roll and tumble their way across rugged terrain. Each rover, dubbed...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online According to a report by the Hindustan Times, India is within reach of developing a mission to Mars. The news agency quoted Amitabha Ghosh, an Indian scientist who was a part of the NASA team that picked out the landing site for the space agency's Curiosity mission, for the report. Ghosh told the Hindustan Times that he is optimistic that an Indian mission to Mars will be successful. He pointed out that Indian Space Research...
Brett Smith for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online In a sun-scorched region of Western Australia known as Pilbara, a team of American and Australian paleobiologists believe they have located the oldest known evidence of life on Earth. The ancient bacterial fossils have been dated as 3.49 billion years old, only about a billion years after scientists estimate the Earth was formed. “It’s not just finding this stuff that’s interesting,” said Alan Decho, a geobiologist at the...
redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports – Your Universe Online The Mars rover Curiosity will ring in the new year drilling into its first rock before moving on to the base of Mount Sharp, where its search for carbon-based molecules begins in earnest, NASA officials told the media on Saturday. First up in 2013, the rover, which spent the holiday measuring the planet's atmosphere, will begin the process of selecting a rock, drilling into it, and then determining what chemicals it is...
April Flowers for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online NASA has been using social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook to reach and excite the public all year, and now they have added a new social media partner: Foursquare. Foursquare, a mobile application, and NASA have teamed up to help the public unlock their scientitific curiosity with a new rover-themed Curiosity Explorer badge. Foursquare is a social media platform that is location based – users check in at different...
WASHINGTON, Dec. 27, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA and the mobile application Foursquare have teamed up to help the public unlock its scientific curiosity with a new rover-themed Curiosity Explorer badge. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) Users of the Foursquare social media platform can earn the badge by following NASA and checking in at a NASA visitor center or venue categorized as a science museum or planetarium. Upon earning the badge, users...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online NASA's Curiosity rover began exploring "Yellowknife Bay" on Mars this week, helping to provide information to researchers about which rock to drill. Researchers will use Curiosity's percussive drill to collect a sample from the interior of a rock, which is another new feat for the Martian rover. After the powdered-rock sample is sieved and portioned by a sample processing mechanism on the rover's arm, it will be analyzed by...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Researchers say that if Curiosity ever loses its location on the surface of Mars, it could use eclipses to help it find its way. Researchers at the Complutense University of Madrid (Spain) have developed a method for helping Curiosity find its way around Mars by using Martian moons. "Observing these events offers an independent method for determining the coordinates of Curiosity," Gonzalo Barderas, researcher at UCM and...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online The year 2012 has proved to be a historic one on the space exploration front, with many accomplishments across the board at NASA. During the past year, the space agency landed the most sophisticated rover on Mars, carried out the first commercial mission to the International Space Station, and work has gone underway for NASA's next generation spacecraft and rocket. After surfing through space for nearly nine months, NASA's...
WASHINGTON, Dec. 12, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In 2012, NASA continued to implement America's ambitious space exploration program, landing the most sophisticated rover on the surface of Mars, carrying out the first-ever commercial mission to the International Space Station and advancing the systems needed to send humans deeper into space. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) "NASA achieved historic milestones this year landing the most sophisticated...
