Pasadena CA (SPX) Dec 21, 2007 - Opportunity is now in the process of driving to the third band of light-colored rocks that circumvent Victoria Crater beneath the rim. Scientists had initially planned to have the rover head directly downhill to a rock target nicknamed Ronov, within the band known as Lyell.
Pasadena CA (SPX) Dec 20, 2007 - To make the most of waning sunlight during the approach of Martian winter, Spirit's handlers have returned to Mars time. This means their working hours coincide with the Martian day, as they did for the first three months after the rover landed on the red planet. Because a Martian day is about 40 minutes longer than an Earth day, Mars time can coincide with all hours of the day and night on Earth.
Pasadena CA (SPX) Dec 19, 2007 - Now playing online -- a new Martian movie showing the planet rotating. The movie was made from four images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2, built and designed by JPL. The images were taken within 36 hours of today's closest approach to Earth by Mars. The camera captured the views when Mars was just 88 million kilometers (55 million miles) away.
Glassboro NJ (SPX) Dec 18, 2007 - 'Tis the season for Rowan University physics and astronomy associate professor David Klassen. Mars season that is. December 24 marks the Mars opposition-the point at which Earth and Mars pass each other in their orbits. Visions of the planet will be dancing in Klassen's telescope in the coming days because Mars appears three to five times bigger in the sky during the opposition-quite a seasonal treat for observers of the planet.
Pasadena CA (JPL) Dec 17, 2007 - Spirit has arrived at the north edge of Home Plate. The rover will spend the next few Martian days, or sols, scouting the edge of Home Plate and acquiring images of the slopes to determine the best site for Winter Haven 3, where Spirit will try to survive another season of minimal sunlight. Once the team selects a site, Spirit will drive down the north-facing edge of Home Plate and maneuver into position to achieve the highest northerly tilt possible.
San Francisco CA (SPX) Dec 13, 2007 - Scrutiny by NASA's newest Mars orbiter is helping scientists learn the stories of some of the weirdest landscapes on Mars, as well as more familiar-looking parts of the Red Planet.
Washington DC (SPX) Dec 12, 2007 - Organic compounds contain carbon and hydrogen and form the building blocks of all life on Earth. By analyzing organic material and minerals in the Martian meteorite Allan Hills 84001, scientists at the Carnegie Institution's Geophysical Laboratory have shown for the first time that building blocks of life formed on Mars early in its history. Previously, scientists have thought that organic material in ALH 84001 was brought to Mars by meteorite impacts or more speculatively originated from ancient Martian microbes.
Paris, France (ESA) Dec 12, 2007 - This summer, Mars suffered a titanic dust storm that engulfed the entire planet. The dust storm contributed to a temporary warming effect around Mars, which raised the temperature of the atmosphere by around 20-30C. However, the surface temperature of the planet itself dropped.
Columbus OH (SPX) Dec 12, 2007 - New software is helping NASA find safe places for the Spirit rover to ride out future Martian winters -- and also plan where Spirit and its companion rover, Opportunity, will explore in the future. The steep Martian mesa dubbed Von Braun would be a safe haven, the software and data analysis determined -- but the path that Spirit would have to follow to get there is a little too risky to travel with winter on the way, explained Ron Li, professor of civil and environmental engineering and geodetic science at Ohio State University.
Columbus OH (SPX) Dec 11, 2007 - Scientists have gathered more evidence that suggests flowing water on Mars -- by comparing images of the red planet to an otherworldly landscape on Earth. In recent years, scientists have examined images of several sites on Mars where water appears to have flowed to the surface and left behind a trail of sediment. Those sites closely resemble places where water flows today in the McMurdo Dry Valleys in Antarctica, the new study has found.
San Francisco CA (SPX) Dec 11, 2007 - Researchers using NASA's twin Mars rovers are sorting out two possible origins for one of Spirit's most important discoveries, while also getting Spirit to a favorable spot for surviving the next Martian winter. The puzzle is what produced a patch of nearly pure silica -- the main ingredient of window glass -- that Spirit found last May. It could have come from either a hot-spring environment or an environment called a fumarole, in which acidic steam rises through cracks.
Pasadena CA (JPL) Dec 11, 2007 - Opportunity spent part of the past week carefully grinding a hole into the surface of a light-colored ring of rock inside Victoria Crater known as Smith, despite the previous loss of encoders that enabled two of the motors of the rock abrasion tool to operate under control of the tool's flight software.
Moffett Field CA (SPX) Dec 07, 2007 - Martian clouds may contain less water than previously thought, according to a new NASA study. New NASA laboratory measurements of simulated martian clouds reveal that scientists may have been overestimating the amount of water in the planet's atmosphere.
Pasadena CA (JPL) Dec 04, 2007 - In typical unflagging fashion, Spirit has managed to break free of piles of soil built up around the wheels in a low, sandy area that the rover's handlers have nicknamed Tartarus, after a deep, underworld dungeon in Greek mythology. Team members are pulling out all the stops to get Spirit to a winter location where, based on solar power projections, the rover has a chance at survival.
Pasadena CA (JPL) Dec 04, 2007 - Opportunity continues to investigate the rock exposure known as Smith2 in the second of three bathtub ring-like layers of rock inside Victoria Crater as well as test communications for Phoenix, NASA's next mission to Mars. The rover is healthy and all subsystems are normal.
Paris, France (ESA) Dec 03, 2007 - These images taken by the High-Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC), onboard ESA's Mars Express imaged the Noctis Labyrinthus region, the 'labyrinth of the night' on Mars. The HRSC took these pictures on 25 June 2006 in orbit 3155, with a ground resolution of approximately 16 m/pixel. Noctis Labyrinthus lies at approximately 6.5 south and 260 east. The Sun illuminates the scene from the north-west, top right in the image above.
