NASA celebrates the 20th anniversary of their Spirit and Opportunity Mars rover landings. Both of them landed in January 2004, on opposite sides of the planet in areas that scientists suspected had been once affected by liquid water in the ancient past.
At first glance, this may look like the Star Trek Starfleet insignia, but it’s actually a rock formation captured by the Left Navigation Camera onboard NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover. This peculiar image was observed on Sol 4062 (2024-01-09 21:08:59 UTC).
NASA’s Perseverance rover explored an ancient river in Jezero Crater on Mars and captured 993 individual images and 2.38 billion pixels to create this 360-degree mosaic. This panorama looks in all directions from a location the JPL’s science team calls “Airey Hill.”
NASA’s Curiosity rover used its black-and-white Hazard-Avoidance Cameras (Hazcam) to capture what a day on Mars looks like on November 8. The front Hazcam was pointed southeast along Gediz Vallis, a valley found on Mount Sharp.
Photo credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has gifted an Ingenuity Mars helicopter prototype to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. This helicopter was first used in tests at JPL in a simulated Mars environment and was the first Ingenuity prototype to demonstrate that flight on Mars was possible.
ESA’s ExoMars Rosalind Franklin mission is set to launch in 2028, and its rover will search for past as well as present life on the Red Planet. Thanks to its drill and scientific instruments, it will be the first rover to reach a depth of up to 2 meters (6.6 feet) deep below the surface, acquiring samples that have been shielded from surface radiation and extreme temperatures.
NASA has just released a video showing Ingenuity’s 59th flight on Mars, but from two different views. The helicopter achieved its second highest altitude of 66 feet while taking pictures of this 142-second flight that took place on September 16, 2023.
Data provided by the ESA’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) mission was used to show what a green nightglow would look like to human astronauts on the Red Planet. When the skies are clear, the glow could be bright enough for humans to see by and for rovers to navigate in the dark nights.
NASA’s Perseverance and Curiosity rovers will lose communication with ground control teams for 2-weeks during the Mars solar conjunction, which happens every other year. This pause is necessary because the hot, ionized gas expelled from the Sun’s corona could potentially corrupt radio signals sent from Earth to NASA’s Mars spacecraft, resulting in unexpected behaviors.
