Moffett Field CA (SPX) May 31, 2005 - In January 2004, Spirit and Opportunity landed on Mars. In May of 2004, four months into the expected three month mission, Nagin Cox gave a talk in this lecture series on the status of the rover mission.
Huntsville AL (SPX) May 30, 2005 - Earth is racing toward Mars at a speed of 23,500 mph, which means the red planet is getting bigger and brighter by the minute. In October, when the two planets are closest together, Mars will outshine everything in the night sky except Venus and the Moon. (You're another 50 miles closer: keep reading!)
Honolulu HI (SPX) May 30, 2005 - By using new, high spatial resolution infrared data from NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft, Victoria Hamilton from the University of Hawaii at Manoa and Philip Christensen from Arizona State University have concluded that a region on the surface of Mars known to contain olivine-rich rocks is actually 4 times larger than previously estimated.
Pasadena CA (JPL) May 30, 2005 - Opportunity continues to make slow progress through the sand dune, at a slip rate of roughly 99.5 percent. From the time Opportunity resumed driving after digging into the dune until May 26, drives totaling 64.8 meters (about 213 feet) of wheel rotations have been commanded and executed, producing 34.8 centimeters (1.1 feet) of forward progress.
Pasadena CA (JPL) May 30, 2005 - Spirit is healthy and power positive. Spirit is doing some remarkable science at Larry's Outcrop, moving along the edge of this spot that looks stereotypically Mars-like.
Pasadena CA (JPL) May 25, 2005 - NASA's Mars rover Opportunity is trying to escape from a sand trap, while its twin, Spirit, has been busy finding new clues to a wet and violent early Martian history.
Washington DC (SPX) May 25, 2005 - Mars is now a cold, dry desert, but robotic satellites and rovers have returned new evidence of a warmer and wetter climate more than 3.5 billion years ago, when conditions may have been more favorable for life.
Pasadena CA (JPL) May 21, 2005 - Opportunity continues to make inch-by-inch progress toward getting out of the dune where it has been dug-in since sol 446 (April 26).
Pasadena CA (JPL) May 20, 2005 - NASA's Mars Global Surveyor recently imaged two other spacecraft orbiting Mars, NASA's Mars Odyssey and the ESA's Mars Express.
Atlanta GA (SPX) May 19, 2005 - Take the cold tolerance of bacteria that thrive in arctic ice, add the ultraviolet resistance of tomato plants growing high in the Andes mountains, and combine with an ordinary plant. What do you get? A tough plant pioneer that can grow in Martian soil.
Ithica NY (SPX) May 19, 2005 - Gradual progress. To extract Opportunity from her little predicament, we've commanded a total of 12 meters of wheel turns so far... 2 meters, then 2 meters, then 4 meters, then 4 meters. We've seen slow, steady progress each time.
Pasadena CA (JPL) May 18, 2005 - Spirit remains in excellent health. On sols 477, 478 and 479 (May 7 to May 9, 2005), Spirit made observations with remote-sensing instruments and analyzed soil targets with its alpha particle X-ray spectrometer and Moessbauer spectrometer.
Ithica CA (JPL) May 17, 2005 - The Mars Rover teams have contunied their slow and methodical approach to getting their 400 million dollar robot out of a sand dune on Mars some 191 million kilometers away.
Pasadena CA (JPL) - May 17, 2005 - On Opportunity's first three drives to get out of the sand trap, the rover has advanced a total of 7.4 centimeters (2.9 inches) in getting off the dune.
St Louis MO (SPX) May 16, 2005 - A geologist from Washington University in St. Louis is developing new techniques to render a more coherent story of how primitive life arose and diverged on Earth - with implications for Mars.
Corvallis OR (SPX) May 16, 2005 - An interdisciplinary team of scientists thinks it has an answer to a long-standing mystery of why the permanent icecap on Mars' South Pole is offset from the pole itself. Simply put, it's colder and stormier in that hemisphere.
