Latest Opportunity rover Stories

Lee Rannals for RedOrbit.com North Carolina State University researchers are proposing that a wind-driven "tumbleweed" Mars rover would be capable of moving across the Red Planet's rocky terrain. The scientists developed a computer model to determine how varying the diameter and mass of a tumbleweed rover would affect its speed and ability to avoid getting stuck in Martian rock fields, which are common on the surface of the planet. “We found that, in general, the larger the...

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...

WASHINGTON, May 9, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has revealed that movement in sand dune fields on the Red Planet occurs on a surprisingly large scale, about the same as in dune fields on Earth. (Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) This is unexpected because Mars has a much thinner atmosphere than Earth, is only about one percent as dense, and its high-speed winds are less frequent and weaker than Earth's. For...

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has revealed that movement in sand dune fields on the Red Planet occurs on a surprisingly large scale, about the same as in dune fields on Earth. This is unexpected because Mars has a much thinner atmosphere than Earth, is only about one percent as dense, and its high-speed winds are less frequent and weaker than Earth's. For years, researchers debated whether sand dunes observed on Mars were mostly fossil features related to past climate, rather than...

COLLEGE STATION, Texas, May 8, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Climate change on Earth is always a big topic. Climate change on Mars could be even bigger. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120502/DC99584LOGO ) NASA's top scientists - including a Texas A&M University researcher - hope to find out how Mars' climate has evolved over billions of years, and answers could come soon in the mission involving Curiosity, a Volkswagen-sized rover that is headed toward the Red...

Evidence that there was once water on Mars continues to mount, as the European Space Agency (ESA) and researchers from a U.S. university became the latest to tout findings supporting the theory that there was once H2O on the Red Planet. On Friday, the ESA announced in a press release that their Mars Express space exploration mission had sent back images from the planet which had apparently been formed in part by flowing liquid. The images are of the western part of a massive basin on the...

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...

The NASA Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) and the Curiosity rover are now less than 100 days away from landing on the surface of the Red Planet, officials at the US space agency announced on Friday. The one-ton Curiosity and the craft ferrying it to Mars reached the T-minus 100 day mark at 10:31pm PDT on Friday, officials at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California said over the weekend. At that time, it was approximately 119 million miles from its destination, travelling...

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft, halfway to Mars, adjusted its flight path today for delivery of the one-ton rover Curiosity to the surface of Mars in August. Tests completed aboard Curiosity last week confirmed the health of science instruments the mission will use to learn whether an area holding an extensive record of Martian environmental history has ever offered conditions favorable for microbial life. In the second of six planned trajectory correction maneuvers during...