Curiosity in the middle on the Martian sand

Dear followers,

fews day ago, we proposed you an impressive night picture of Curiosity, today a new 360° panorama has been built and published on our blog.

Curiosity Mars rover performed a successful proximity mode deployment of APXS in the wheel track on Sol 673. The images for panorama obtained by the rover's 34-millimeter Mast Camera. The mosaic, which stretches about 30,000 pixels width, includes 137 images taken on Sol 673.

Mars Panorama - Curiosity rover: Martian solar day 673 in The World

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Curiosity captured the first ever asteroids observed from the Martian planet

Dear readers and followers,

last week, on April 24th, the NASA's rover, Curiosity, switched its usual activity to observe the sky over the martian land. Using its camera, the rover captured the first ever picture of an asteroid observed from the martian planet.

Credit: NASA 

The both asteroid presented on the picture are the very small planet called Ceres ( 950 km of diameter) and Vesta (563 km of diameter). Ceres is the biggest asteroid of the asteroid belt.

Source

Explore the land of Mars with Curiosity for its 531 martian days on the red planet

Dear readers and followers,

After, 531 Martian days the NASA's rover, Curiosity is still working and performing its exploration of the red planet even if the space rover had some power glitch which perturb its functioning. This new interactive 360° panorama has been built with 130 images for a total resolution of 30,000 pixels widths !!! Dingo Gap is visible on the left where the rover traversed a small dune ripple to get into more better terrain for its wheels.

Credit : +Andrew Bodrov 

Credit image: +NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory 

Dingo Gap, the dune of sand taken in 360° by Curiosity on Mars

Dear followers,

after 526 days on Mars, the curiosity rover from +NASA continue to explore the surface for the red planet until a dune of sand called Dingo Gap.

Credit image: +NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory 

A new 360° panorama has been proposed +Andrew Bodrov. The panorama shows the Dingo Gap taken during the 530th Martian day. The dune is about 1 m high.

Mars Panorama - Curiosity rover: Martian solar day 530 in The World


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NASA discovers an ancient lake on Mars

Dear followers,

after many months on Mars, the Curiosity rover reveals its major discovery which could change the space field research. Actually, the space rover has revealed the evidence of an ancient lake with water that could plausibly be described as drinkable. This validates the first analyses performed and published few months ago: the first scoop of soil analysed by the analytic suite in the belly of martian rover reveals that fine materials on the surface of the planet contain several percent water by weight.

Credits: +NASA 

This discovery might emphasize the probability of an ancient life on the red planet; “If we put microbes from Earth and put them in this lake on Mars, would they survive? Would they survive and thrive? And the answer is yes,” said John Grotzinger, a Caltech planetary geologist who is the chief scientist of the Curiosity rover mission. 

As described in the science paper, "A Habitable Fluvio-Lacustrine Environment at Yellowknife Bay, Gale Crater, Mars", the aqueous environment found on the red planet was characterized by neutral pH, low salinity, and variable redox states of both iron and sulfur species. C, H, O, S, N, and P were measured directly as key biogenic elements, and by inference P is assumed to have been available. These results highlight the biological viability of fluvial-lacustrine environments in the post-Noachian history of Mars.

We should have more details in the next days and months, so stay tuned

Curiosity Mars rover is back after a power glitch

Dear followers,

The NASA's space rover Curiosity which explores the Mars's land for 16 months has stopped the whole of the science operations and driving during six days. Actually, an electrical power system glitch had induced a system dysfunction on the space rover. Fortunately, the problem has now been resolved.

This dysfunction is the second trouble observed on the martian rover after an other one which has been observed and which has been assigned to radiation effects. For the moment the cause of this dysfunction has still not been found but the +NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineers are working on it. “We made a list of potential causes, and then determined which we could cross off the list, one by one,” said rover electrical engineer Rob Zimmerman of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in Pasadena, California.

Credits: +NASA 

For the moment, Curiosity has already accomplished its primary science goal of discovering a habitable zone at her landing site. This kind of dysfunction could be critical for the Curiosity mission, but the martian rover is safe now.

In the next months, the Curiosity rover will be join by the Maven spacecraft sent by NASA two weeks ago.

Stay tuned for the next news about the red planet discoveries.

Source: NASA

Mars panorama taken by Curiosity rover day 437 on the red planet

Mars Panorama - Curiosity rover: Martian solar day 437 in The World

Update: Panorama was taken few day before Curiosity experienced an unexpected software reboot. This computer reset occurred about four-and-half hours after new flight software had been temporarily loaded into the rover's memory.
The images for panorama obtained by the rover's 34-millimeter Mast Camera. The mosaic, which stretches about 30,000 pixels width, includes 101 images taken on Sol 437 

Source: +NASA 

The short list of the landing of the next Mission InSight on Mars surface selected

Dear followers,

+NASA has announced that the number of potential landing site for the next mission to the surface of Mars is now focus on four locations. After the current success of Curiosity and its one news for research on the red planet, the mission InSight ( Interior Exploration Using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) is scheduled to launch in March 2016 and land on Mars's surface six months later. 

Credits: +NASA / +NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory 

"This mission's science goals are not related to any specific location on Mars because we're studying the planet as a whole, down to its core," said Bruce Banerdt, InSight principal investigator at +NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory . For this main reasons, the  "mission safety and survival are what drive our criteria for a landing site."

During its mission, InSight rover will deploy a seismometer on the Mars' surface and will use its radio for scientific measurements.

Credits: +NASA / +NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory 

+NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory  manages InSight for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The French space agency, +CNES (Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales), and the German Aerospace Center are contributing instruments to the mission. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, is building the spacecraft.

Source: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/insight/news/insight20130904.html#.Ui1kktJFBpD

Annular eclipse of the Sun by the Mars's moons seen by Curiosity

Credits: +NASA / +NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory / +Texas A&M University 

Amazing video of 2 Mars moons captured by Mars Curiosity

Credits: +NASA / +NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory 

The next NASA's spacecraft to Mars arrived at Kennedy Space Center

Dear follower,

After Curiosity, the rover sent to the red planet by +NASA to explore the land of Mars, the American space agency, works on a new spacecraft : MAVEN. This spacecraft should be sent before the end of this year.

Credits: +NASA / Tim Jacobs

The new Mars spacecraft called MAVEN for Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution arrived on August 3rd at the +NASA agency at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. MAVEN was flown to Florida for launch processing from Buckley Air Force base near the +Lockheed Martin facility in Littleton, Colorado, where the spacecraft was built.

The next Mars mission should lift off on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket in November 2013. The travel of the spacecraft should be around 10 month. This mission will be the first one dedicated to studying Mars' upper atmosphere and the scientists of +NASA and +NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory hope to find traces of the ancient environment of the red planet.

Curiosity Mars rover tracks viewed from orbiter

Credits: +NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory 

9 Months for Curiosity on Mars in 1 minute

Dear follower,

today, I would talk to you about Curiosity, the +NASA rover launched in November 2011 from Earth and landed on Mars in August 2012, yes, 9 months ago !! it's a very long time. After some troubles few weeks ago, and a cut of communications, the Curiosity rover is still working and sending interesting data by exploring the Mars surface.

Today, I would propose you a time lapse video of the 9 months of Curiosity rover summarized in 1 minutes. This work has been performed using data from +NASA and +NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Credit: Karl Sanford

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