While many planetary geologists think Mars would have been warm, wet ideal environment for primitive life, not every agrees. And they have some science of their own to back it up: [Read more…]
The Zingularity
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While many planetary geologists think Mars would have been warm, wet ideal environment for primitive life, not every agrees. And they have some science of their own to back it up: [Read more…]
Souped up frame rate thanks to interpolation! Yay math!
Click pic for large image, 946 X 710, at NASA/JPL homepage
Mars Curiosity is like a super hero probe compared to her less endowed peers and this week she began proving it. While I’m not planetary geologist, that looks like the spittin image of marine strata exposed by some kind of erosion: [Read more…]
And not just any old wimpy office presentation pointer laser, either. No, Cursiotiy’s ChemCam system includes ba serious, rock vaporaizing weapons grade zap gun intended to examine samples at the molevular level. Or fend off tentacled monsters with a thirst for human blood: [Read more…]
Hint: the wheels have ‘randomly’ placed holes …
Mars Curiosity is quite a machine, a lander, rover, mobile chemical laboratory and robot geologist. But its designers were human, so hidden in the wheels is a geeky tech-y joke. What is it? [Read more…]
Don’t worry, Mars Curiosity the rover is alive and well and on the verge of beginning the mission it was so ably designed to do! There’s every reason to expect Curiosity will perform brilliantly, and that’s good, because there’s nothing much slated for Mars after it. When Curiosity finally seizes up, likely frozen in place, starved for power and heat and mobility while examining an undisclosed ancient, dusty lakebed, and the mini sat network above stops talking to its creators, it is an end of sorts to our curiosity, until we do something about it: [Read more…]
There’s a bit of a lively debate in geology about tectonic plates and how rare or common they may be. Since earth is the only planet we’ve studied in-depth, the winners of that debate are yet to be announced. But one geophysicist has found evidence for nascent plate tectonics on a certain nearby world, and the evidence was there all along: [Read more…]
Curiosity is revving up her primary cameras and testing the treads. Soon she’ll trundle off the landing site and start prospecting for Martian gold. I’ve collected a few of the best EDL pics below. [Read more…]
To those of you already saturated, I’m sorry for posting so much on this. But I’ve been waiting for it for years, and NASA/JPL is really delivering the goods. There’s a hi-res version of this in the works that chief scientist Mike Malin claims “will just be exquisite.”
Lovely picture taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter as Curiosity was descending to Gale Crater. Click image for info at Red Orbit.