The oldest known Martian meteorite – a space rock that fell to Earth – is some 400 million years younger than originally thought. It formed about 4.091 billion years ago, a time when the red planet was wet and had a magnetic field, a new study suggests.
Studying this chunk of ancient Mars, which reflects the volcanic processes and bombardment by space debris, could help scientists better understand Mars’ early evolution, as well as Earth’s.
The meteorite, dubbed ALH84001, was found during a snowmobile ride on Dec. 27, 1984 in the Far Western Icefield of Allan Hills in Antarctica.
April 17th, 2010
Oldest Mars Meteorite Younger Than Thought
March 25th, 2010
Mars Rover Finds Weird Rocks, Hits 20-Km Marker
With new software that allows Opportunity to photograph rocks and other aspects of the Martian terrain and decide for itself what is worth closer inspection, the rover took an up-close look at a few rocks ejected by the impact that created Concepción.
What Opportunity has seen are chunks of the same type of bedrock it has seen at hundreds of locations since landing in January 2004: soft, sulfate-rich sandstone holding harder peppercorn-size dark spheres like berries in a muffin. The little spheres, rich in iron, gained the nickname “blueberries.” But these rocks have some unusual twists as well.
“It was clear from the images that Opportunity took on the approach to Concepción that there was strange stuff on lots of the rocks near the crater,” said Steve Squyres of Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., principal investigator for Opportunity and its twin rover, Spirit. “There’s dark, grayish material coating faces of the rocks and filling fractures in them. At least part of it is composed of blueberries jammed together as close as you could pack them. We’ve never seen anything like this before.”
March 25th, 2010
Last Chance to Get a Good Look at Mars Until 2012
On Thursday night, March 25, many people may look up at the sky and ask the question, “What’s that bright star next to the moon?”
The answer for Thursday night is Mars, but that answer changes night by night as the moon travels along the ecliptic, the path the sun, moon and planets follow across the sky. If you ask the question again on Monday night, March 29, the answer will be the ringed planet Saturn.
Such conjunctions of the moon and planets are regular reminders of how rapidly the moon moves across the sky. Mars was in opposition to the Sun on Jan. 29, when it appeared 14 arcseconds in diameter, 1/120 of the diameter of the moon. Two months later, it is much farther away, and has shrunk to only 10 arcseconds in diameter.
This will be your last chance to get a good look at Mars until it approaches the Earth again in 2012.
March 25th, 2010
Mars Rover Gets Mind of Its Own
NASA’s Mars rover Opportunity is getting a chance to call its own science shots on the red planet.
New software uploaded to the intrepid robot now allows Opportunity to make its own decisions about whether or not to make additional observations of Mars rocks it spots when it arrives at a new location.
The rover has already taken its first automated images of Martian rocks to test out how well the new program works. “It’s a way to get some bonus science,” said rover driver Tara Estlin of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., also a member of JPL’s Artificial Intelligence Group, which developed the new software.
March 15th, 2010
What NASA’s Mars Orbiter Data Flood Means
NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) may be the baby of the fleet of spacecraft currently studying the red planet. But the probe has been nothing short of prolific with its Martian observations and recently surpassed more than 100 terabits of data.
That number, announced by NASA recently, doesn’t mean much to most of us, so SPACE.com has calculated what 100 terabits are in various more everyday measures.
Altogether, 100 terabits is 100 trillion bits of information and would take up 17,000 700MB CDs. That would be about 4 million songs, with each lasting about three minute – quite the album collection.
March 4th, 2010
Hidden Glaciers Are Common on Mars
Vast glaciers of ice are common on Mars, but you have to dig below the surface to find them, new radar views from a NASA spacecraft show.
These hidden deposits of buried Martian ice were first confirmed two years ago, but recent scans of the red planet by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter are revealing new clues about how the ice may have gotten there.
Scientists think the Mars glaciers may have been left as remnants when regional ice sheets retreated.
“The hypothesis is the whole area was covered with an ice sheet during a different climate period, and when the climate dried out, these deposits remained only where they had been covered by a layer of debris protecting the ice from the atmosphere,” said Jeffrey Plaut of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
The ice extends for hundreds of miles, or kilometers, in a mid-latitude region of Mars called Deuteronilus Mensae.
February 2nd, 2010
Stuck Rover on Mars Can Still Do Science
NASA’s beleaguered Mars rover Spirit may no longer be much of a rover, but it’s not the end of the road for her yet. The semi-stuck robot still has plenty of science left to do on the red planet, mission scientists say.
“There’s actually a whole class of scientific objectives that you can only address from a vehicle that doesn’t move. So far we’ve pretty much tended to ignore those,” said rover mission principal investigator Steven Squyres of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
Squyres and other mission mangers announced last week that they were halting the effort to free Spirit from the sand trap it has been stuck in since May and shifting efforts to preparing the rover for the upcoming Martian winter.
The rover’s handlers will try over the next week to position the rover to maximize the amount of solar radiation it receives to give it the best chance of making it through the winter.
“Energy is getting so low that we think we only have, you know, at maximum another half-dozen drives to be able to do that before we have to hunker down and get through the winter campaign,” said science team member Ray Arvidson of the Washington University in St. Louis.
That winter campaign won’t see the rover doing much: “In the dead of winter, it can try to survive, that’s about it,” Arvidson told SPACE.com.
January 27th, 2010
NASA Budget Request Expected to Realign U.S. Spaceflight Goals
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden will unveil the U.S. space agency’s spending priorities for 2011 during a Feb. 1 announcement at NASA headquarters here, according to administration officials.
President Barack Obama’s 2011 budget request is expected to realign NASA’s human spaceflight activities and investments to foster development of commercial systems capable of ferrying astronauts to the International Space Station. The request is not expected to include a much-sought after billion-dollar boost to aid NASA’s funding-hampered human spaceflight efforts.
NASA currently plans to retire its three aging space shuttles this year after five more missions. But plans to use the shuttle fleet’s replacement – NASA’s new Ares rockets and their Orion crew vehicles – for an eventual return to the moon are still in flux.
January 21st, 2010
Stuck Rover on Mars Climbs Slightly in Escape Attempt
NASA’s embattled Mars rover Spirit has managed its first successful, but ever-so-small, climb as it drives in reverse to escape a Martian sand trap that has plagued it for more than eight months.
Spirit lifted itself by nearly half an inch (just over 1 cm) during its latest two drive attempts this month, NASA announced Thursday. While that seems tiny, it’s the first upward motion for the rover since escape attempts began in November, the agency added.
The rover also moved about 2.6 inches (6.5 cm) backwards in the maneuvers, which took place on Jan. 14 and Jan. 16. Spirit’s left-middle wheel stalled on Tuesday during yet another drive attempt.
“The explanation here is that the rover’s rear wheels are climbing, raising the back of the rover,” NASA officials said in a statement. “Images from the rear hazard avoidance camera confirm this.”
December 23rd, 2009
Powerful Mars Orbiter Makes a Comeback
NASA’s most powerful Mars orbiter has bounced back from some hard luck around the red planet this year, and scientists are eager to resume the orbiter’s detailed observations of Mars in the new year.
After a series of glitches that began in February, mission managers put the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) into a protective “safe mode” in August. The spacecraft was resurrected earlier this month and resumed its science operations last week, much to the delight of Mars scientists, who have waited patiently for the orbiter to return to duty.
“It’s good to have the instruments back on,” said MRO mission manager Dan Johnston of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif. “This has been a long stand-down. Now we’re ready to resume our science and relay mission.”