Latest Meridiani Planum Stories

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 4, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The latest work assignment for NASA's long-lived Mars rover Opportunity is a further examination of an area where the robot just completed a walkabout. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) "If you are a geologist studying a site like this, one of the first things you do is walk the outcrop, and that's what we've done with Opportunity," said Steve Squyres, the mission's principal investigator at Cornell...

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online NASA's veteran rover Opportunity has sent back an image of the Martian surface that is pretty alien compared to what researchers are used to seeing. The image taken by Opportunity's Microscopic Imager contains these spherical objects that measure as much as one-eighth of an inch in diameter. The objects are different from iron-rich spherules nicknamed "blueberries" that Opportunity has run across before. Preliminary analysis shows...

[Watch the Video] Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online NASA, busy planning for the landing of its Curiosity rover on the Red Planet in August 2012, is perhaps getting into the Olympic spirit after the Mars Exploration Rover team announced Wednesday that another of its rovers, Opportunity, is on par to complete a Martian marathon. When Opportunity landed on Mars in 2004, it was only planned to travel a mere 2,000 feet (less than a half mile). Yet, 8 years after its...

Like a tourist waiting for just the right lighting to snap a favorite shot during a stay at the Grand Canyon, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has used a low sun angle for a memorable view of a large Martian crater. The resulting view catches a shadow of the rover in the foreground and the giant basin in the distance. Opportunity is perched on the western rim of Endeavour Crater looking eastward. The crater spans about 14 miles (22 kilometers) in diameter. Opportunity has been...

With its daily supply of solar energy increasing, NASA's durable Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has driven off the sunward-tilted outcrop, called Greeley Haven, where it worked during its fifth Martian winter. Opportunity's first drive since Dec. 26, 2011, took the rover about 12 feet (3.67 meters) northwest and downhill on Tuesday, May 8. The rover operations team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., received confirmation of the completed drive late Tuesday, relayed...

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity discovered evidence of ancient water at the rim of an ancient impact crater on the planet's surface, according to a new report published in the May 4 edition of the journal Science. The rover, which completed its original three-month mission eight years ago and reached the 4 billion year old Endeavour crater last summer, found evidence that the impact that had originally created the crater released heated, underground water that had deposited zinc...

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has found bright veins of a mineral, apparently gypsum, deposited by water. Analysis of the vein will help improve understanding of the history of wet environments on Mars. "This tells a slam-dunk story that water flowed through underground fractures in the rock," said Steve Squyres of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., principal investigator for Opportunity. "This stuff is a fairly pure chemical deposit that formed in place right where we see it....

WASHINGTON, Dec. 7, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has found bright veins of a mineral, apparently gypsum, deposited by water. Analysis of the vein will help improve understanding of the history of wet environments on Mars. (Logo: <font size="2" face="Arial">http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO</font>) "This tells a slam-dunk story that water flowed through underground fractures in the rock," said Steve Squyres...

A drive of 482 feet (146.8 meters) on June 1, 2011, took NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity past 30 kilometers (18.64 miles) in total odometry during 88 months of driving on Mars. That's 50 times the distance originally planned for the mission and more than 12 times the distance racehorses will run next week at the Belmont Stakes.Opportunity has passed many craters on its crater-hopping tour. One of the youngest of them is "Skylab" crater, which the rover passed last month....

The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured a Dec. 31, 2010, view of the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity on the southwestern rim of a football-field-size crater called "Santa Maria."Opportunity arrived at the western edge of Santa Maria crater in mid-December and will spend about two months investigating rocks there. That investigation will take Opportunity into the beginning of its eighth year on Mars. Opportunity...