Home Plate Brings Mars Exploration To Every Desktop
Pasadena CA (SPX) Feb 14, 2006 The Mars Rover team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory continues to pore over close-up images sent back by Spirit from a tabletop-like geologic feature called Home Plate in Gusev Crater. Spirit got its first view of Home Plate last August, after cresting Husband Hill, part of the Columbia Hills, which were named for the lost crew of the space shuttle. It took the rover 94 Martian days, or sols, to drive the 848 meters (2,782 feet, a little more than half a mile) to the formation. In all, the golf cart-sized rover has driven about four miles across the surface at Gusev. Spirit is now studying a rock target called Barnhill, located near Home Plate, using instruments on the rover's robotic arm. The rocks and geologic characteristics of Home Plate are like no other found by either Mars rover in the 25 months they have been rolling over the red planet. Steve Squyres, the mission's principal investigator, took time out from his hectic schedule to answer a few quick questions about the rock formation and about the overall status of the rovers:
Space Daily:
Steve Squyres:
SD:
SS:
SD:
SS: Of course, that could change at any time. We are 'waaay' past warranty on these vehicles, and there is no telling when they will die. It could be two years or now, or it could be tomorrow. So we treat each day as a gift. As for the MSL, it's going to land in 2010 if all goes well, more than four years from now. If either MER rover is still alive when that happens, I will be very surprised.
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Mars Express Studies Possible Aurorae Above Mars Paris, France (SPX) Feb 20, 2006 ESA's Mars Express spacecraft has seen more evidence that aurorae occur over the night side of Mars, especially over areas of the surface where variations in the magnetic properties of the crust have been detected. Observations from the ASPERA instrument on board ESA's Mars Express spacecraft show structures (inverted-V features) of accelerated electrons and ions above the night side of Mars that are almost identical to those that occur above aurorae on Earth. |
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