This month you’ll have an opportunity to see all five naked-eye planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter & Saturn) – but not all at once. Two of them are evening objects, while the other three are clustered together low in the east-southeast sky deep in the dawn twilight. The planets move around in our sky and become brighter and dimmer over time depending on where they are in their orbits around the sun. Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are never visible to the naked eye.
February 12th, 2009
More Details Emerge on Possible Mars Hot Springs
Mounds on Mars that could be from ancient hot springs are described in a new study, after setting the astrobiology community abuzz last spring.
Hydrothermal springs on Earth, like those in Yellowstone National Park, harbor what scientists figure are the closest relatives to the original organisms that lived on our planet. Finding these features on Mars (or any other planet) could have big implications for the question of extraterrestrial life.
Mars has many features that suggest the planet was once warmer and wetter. At the least, the ancient vents — if that’s what they are — would make great places to look for signs of past life.
February 11th, 2009
Europe Extends Missions to Mars, Venus and Earth
The European Space Agency (ESA) on Tuesday announced mission extensions for three spacecraft currently exploring Mars, Venus and the Earth’s magnet field.
The extensions will allow Europe’s current Mars Express and Venus Express probes to continue their missions at their respective planets through Dec. 31, while ESA’s Cluster spacecraft will continue to do the same at Earth.
The announcement marks the third extension for Mars Express, which launched toward the red planet in 2003 and ended its initial mission in October 2005. The boxy Mars Express is Europe’s first mission to Mars and carries seven instruments, including a ground-penetrating radar that has probed beneath the Martian surface to discover pockets of buried water-ice.
January 29th, 2009
Mars Rover’s Unexpected Behavior Puzzles NASA
NASA engineers are scratching their heads over some unexpected behavior from the long-lived Spirit rover, which began its sixth year exploring Mars this month.
Spirit failed to report in to engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., last weekend, prompting a series of diagnostic tests this week to hunt the glitch’s source. The aging Mars rover did not beam home a record of its weekend activities and, more puzzlingly, apparently failed to even record any of its actions on Sunday, mission managers said.
January 13th, 2009
Wanted! Your Views On America’s Space Program Goals
It’s time to put your 21st century thinking cap because you’ve been invited to take part in a new study into why the U.S. has a space program.
The new study “Rationale and Goals of the U.S. Civil Space Program” is looking for the public’s view on the following questions:
What’s the future of human, robotic, commercial, and personal spaceflight? Is your life impacted in a meaningful way by the space program? What kind of emphasis should the space program represent in going forward? How can the country’s civil, or non-military, space program address key national issues?
Views – positive or negative – of the general public are welcomed.
This study is sponsored exclusively by The National Academies, and it is not receiving any funds from government agencies or any other external sources. The assessment is a joint effort of the Space Studies Board and Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board.
December 4th, 2008
Mars Science Laboratory Delayed to 2011
The Mars Science Laboratory mission, a jumbo rover originally slated to launch for the red planet next year, has been delayed until 2011, NASA announced today.
“We will not be ready to launch by the hoped-for date next year,” said NASA Administrator Michael Griffin at a briefing.
A major review of the mission conducted earlier this year had concluded that MSL “had a solid chance of making the 2009 launch” if the launch window was extended into October 2009, which was done, and an additional $200 million was added to the project, said Ed Weiler, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
But new technical issues that came up since that review as well as missed delivery schedules have prompted NASA officials to further delay the mission to avoid a “mad dash to launch,” Weiler said. “Failure on this mission is not an option, the science is too important,” he added.
November 21st, 2008
Buried Glaciers Found on Mars
Mars has vast glaciers hidden under aprons of rocky debris near mid-latitude mountains, a new study confirms, pointing to a new and large potential reservoir of life-supporting water on the planet.
These mounds of ice exist at much lower latitudes than any ice previously found on the red planet.
“Altogether, these glaciers almost certainly represent the largest reservoir of water ice on Mars that’s not in the polar caps,” said John Holt of the University of Texas at Austin and the main author of the study. “Just one of the features we examined is three times larger than the city of Los Angeles and up to one-half-mile thick, and there are many more.”
November 15th, 2008
Focus on Putting Humans on Mars, Group Argues
NASA and other spaceflight programs worldwide should focus on putting people on Mars, not the moon, an advocacy group for space exploration said in a new plan announced today.
“The U.S. landed humans on the Moon nearly 40 years ago,” said Louis Friedman, executive director of The Planetary Society. “Returning to the moon has not sufficiently excited the public and will require resources that will be badly needed elsewhere in the space program.”
The plan, “Beyond the Moon: A New Roadmap for Human Space Exploration in the 21st Century,” included four key elements:
November 15th, 2008
Divining Rod Designed for Mars
Detecting water underground does not require a magical stick. Neutrons reflecting out of the soil can indicate the presence of water or ice. A novel instrument that can detect those neutrons is planned for NASA’s next rover mission to Mars.
Because neutrons penetrate most materials, neutron beams and detectors are often used to study crystal structure, as well as explore oil and mineral reserves underground. The same physics motivates the Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) instrument, a contribution from the Federal Space Agency of Russia to the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) that is scheduled to launch next year. The goal of the DAN instrument is to use neutrons to detect water that might be lurking underneath the rover as it moves along the martian surface.
November 10th, 2008
Mars Lander Mission Appears to be Over
The end seems to have finally come for NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander mission at the planet’s north pole, scientists said Monday.
“At this time we’re pretty convinced that the vehicle is no longer available for us to use,” said Phoenix project manager Barry Goldstein of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
“We knew this would happen eventually,” Goldstein added.
Mission controllers lost touch with the lander on Nov. 2. That “was actually the last time we actually heard form Phoenix,” Goldstein said. The spacecraft has been studying the arctic surface of the red planet for just over five months, since landing there May 25.
During the course of its mission, Phoenix scooped up samples of the Martian dirt and subsurface water ice at its arctic landing site and analyzed them for signs of the planet’s past potential habitability. Phoenix touched down on the northern plains of a region known as Vastitas Borealis. The area is at a latitude on Mars equivalent to northern Alaska on Earth.
Phoenix successfully completed its mission objectives at the end of its three-month primary mission in August. The mission’s cost was ultimately about $475 million (up from the $420 million for its original three-month mission).