Paris, France (SPX) Jan 22, 2007 - Exactly three years ago today, the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) onboard the Mars Express probe captured its first image data of our neighbouring planet. After more than 3800 orbits of Mars, the camera has imaged an area larger than North and South America with a resolution of between ten and twenty metres per pixel, in colour and in 3D.
Pasadena CA (SPX) Jan 22, 2007 - Opportunity continues to make progress in acquiring long-baseline stereo images of Victoria Crater. To do this, the rover moves laterally from one point to another between taking images with the left and right eyes of the panoramic camera. The path separating the images is known as a baseline and increases the apparent visual depth of features in the terrain.
Paris (AFP) Jan 17, 2007 - Members of the European Space Agency face a looming tough decision over whether to cut back a planned unmanned mission to Mars or stump up extra cash, ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain warned on Wednesday. The ExoMars mission entails sending a 200-kilo (440-pound) wheeled rover, which will carry a drill enabling it delve up to two metres (seven feet) below the surface to see if the Red Planet has microbial life, or the potential for it.
Pasadena CA (JPL) Jan 15, 2007 - On the rover's 1,068th sol, or Martian day of exploration on Mars (Jan. 4, 2007), Spirit used its new computer smarts to autonomously acquire images of the terrain using the hazard avoidance camera, construct a three-dimensional model of the terrain, identify rock or soil exposures of interest, and generate plans for placing the Moessbauer spectrometer and microscopic imager on 10 of those targets.
Pasadena CA (JPL) Jan 11, 2007 - The high-resolution camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has imaged the 1997 landing site of NASA's Mars Pathfinder, revealing new details of hardware on the surface and the geology of the region. Pathfinder landed on July 4, 1997, and transmitted data for 12 weeks. Unlike the two larger rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, currently active on Mars, Sojourner could communicate only with the lander, not directly with Earth.
San Diego CA (SPX) Jan 11, 2007 - On Monday, NASA announced $750,000 in funding for development of an instrument to detect signs of life on Mars proposed by a scientist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. The instrument is designed to provide the most rigorous analysis possible for the past and present existence of biological compounds on Mars' surface, according to Jeffrey Bada, a professor at Scripps and lead investigator on the project team.
Pasadena CA (SPX) Jan 11, 2007 - NASA has formed an internal review board to look more in-depth into why NASA's Mars Global Surveyor went silent in November 2006 and recommend any processes or procedures that could increase safety for other spacecraft.
Boulder CO (SPX) Jan 10, 2007 - NASA has selected a team led by the University of Colorado at Boulder as one of two finalists for an orbiting space mission slated to launch in 2011 to probe the past climate of Mars, including its potential for harboring life over the eons. The team, led by CU-Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, will receive $2 million from NASA for a nine-month Phase A study for the proposed Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission, or MAVEN.
Pullman WA (SPX) Jan 10, 2007 - We may already have 'met' Martian organisms, according to a paper presented Sunday (Jan. 7) at the meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle. Dirk Schulze-Makuch of Washington State University and Joop Houtkooper of Justus-Liebig-University, Giessen, Germany, argue that even as new missions to Mars seek evidence that the planet might once have supported life, we already have data showing that life exists there now-data from experiments done by the Viking Mars landers in the late 1970s.
Paris, France (SPX) Jan 09, 2007 - Using ESO's Very Large Telescope and the W.M. Keck Observatory, astronomers at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland and the California Institute of Technology, USA, have discovered the first known triplet of quasars. This close trio of supermassive black holes lies about 10.5 billion light-years away towards the Virgo (The Virgin) constellation.
Pasadena CA (SPX) Jan 09, 2007 - The dust storm season has apparently arrived at Gusev, causing delays in Spirit's fourth Earth year of exploring the Red Planet. Spirit spent most of the holiday season of 2006 and 2007 keeping an eye on the sky, measuring atmospheric dust that could prevent sunlight from reaching the rover's solar panels.
Washington DC (SPX) Jan 09, 2007 - On Monday, NASA selected for concept study development two proposals for future robotic missions to Mars. These missions would increase understanding of Mars' atmosphere, climate and potential habitability in greater detail than ever before. In addition, NASA also will fund a U.S. scientist to participate in a proposed European Mars mission as well as fund instrument technology studies that could lead to further contributions to future Mars missions.
Pasadena CA (SPX) Jan 09, 2007 - Opportunity continued scientific studies of a rock called Santa Catarina on the rim of Victoria Crater. Scientists suspect that Santa Catarina may be a meteorite or a rock blasted out from beneath the surface of Victoria. Opportunity collected extensive measurements to determine the iron content of the rock using the Moessbauer spectrometer and will continue to do so during the coming week.
Pasadena CA (SPX) Jan 04, 2007 - A sudden dust storm cut short Spirit's investigation of a volcanic rock and kicked enough dust into the Martian atmosphere to drive solar power levels to an all-time low. Spirit's team of scientists and engineers decided to move the rover to a spot where the solar panels would be tilted toward the sun to increase the amount of electrical power available.
Pasadena CA (SPX) Jan 04, 2007 - Opportunity remains healthy after completing a drive to a cobble nicknamed Santa Catarina on the way to the Bay of Toil at Victoria Crater. During the holiday break on Earth, Opportunity completed a campaign of scientific study of a rock target called Rio De Janeiro before driving away on Sol 1039 (Dec. 26, 2006). Opportunity's next activity was to begin the drive around the Bay of Toil toward Cape Desire, the next promontory clockwise around Victoria's rim.
Moscow (RIA Novosti) Jan 03, 2007 - Five volunteers have been selected for a simulated Mars mission, expected to be launched in Russia late next year, a spokesman for the Russian Space Agency said Friday. The Russian Institute of Medical and Biological Studies has completed the selection of participants for the Mars-500 experiment, Igor Panarin said. There are five of them, all are male, and they come from Russia as well as other countries.
