Moffett Field CA (SPX) Mar 15, 2005 - At the recent European Space Agency's Mars Express conference, scientists announced they had found a frozen sea on the martian equator. John Murray, from the Department of Earth Sciences at the Open University in the UK, is lead author on the paper to be published in the journal Nature. Astrobiology Magazine editor Leslie Mullen sat down with Murray to discuss the new finding.
Pasadena CA (JPL) Mar 15, 2005 - Spirit is in good health and is successfully using a new version of flight software. After completing an investigation of a rock dubbed Watchtower, Spirit is returning to a soil area of interest informally labeled Paso Robles.
Moffett Field CA (SPX) Mar 09, 2005 - Chris McKay, a planetary scientist at the Ames Research Center, has long been investigating the coldest and driest places on Earth. These harsh environments - and the ability of life to adapt there - could point the way to finding life on Mars.
Washington (UPI) March 09, 2005 - Many Americans have questioned repeatedly the usefulness of the International Space Station, but it stands as NASA's only gateway at the moment to the rest of the solar system. Without the station - or something comparable - it will be difficult if not impossible for U.S. engineers and scientists to do the research necessary to make interplanetary travel possible.
Pasadena CA (JPL) Mar 09, 2005 - After a busy week of driving with new mobility software, Opportunity continues to be in excellent health. The rover has traveled 450 meters (just over a quarter of a mile) in 6 sols.
Pasadena CA (JPL) Mar 08, 2005 - Spirit's focus on sols 408 through 412 was the spectacular panorama from Larry's Lookout. After completing that 4-sol effort, Spirit rolled to a nearby rock target called Watchtower and began examining it with tools on the robotic arm.
Pasadena CA (JPL) Mar 03, 2005 - On three consecutive days, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity accomplished unprecedented feats of martian motion, covering more total ground in that period than either Opportunity or its twin, Spirit, did in their first 70 days on Mars.
Los Angeles (SPX) Mar 03, 2005 - In 1999 I sent SpaceDaily, and other media, information from a 1998 informal study I did of some Mars Global Surveyor images of the northern hemisphere of Mars. The first image I found was suggestive of an icy cracked terrain similar in appearance to images returned of the surface of Europa.
Pasadena CA (JPL) Mar 02, 2005 - Spirit has spent the last 70 sols climbing up the Columbia Hills to reach Larry's Lookout, a point on Cumberland Ridge.
Pasadena CA (JPL) Mar 01, 2005 - The first week of May, the Mars Express spacecraft will unfurl its radar antenna. The Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding - or MARSIS - will have many tasks, but one of the most important will be the search for liquid water.
Paris (ESA) Feb 28, 2005 - These images, taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board ESA's Mars Express spacecraft, were released at the First Mars Express Science Conference this week. They show the areas of focused research - water, ice, glaciers and volcanism.
Pasadena CA (JPL) Feb 28, 2005 - Spirit is getting new software for increased brainpower, but the rover is not using it quite yet.
Los Angeles (SPX) Feb 24, 2005 - An article in the New Scientist reports that a team of scientists working on the European Mars Express orbiter have found evidence of large amounts of pack ice lying within a few centimters of the Martian surface in parts of the planet's equatorial regions.
Pasadena CA (JPL) Feb 23, 2005 - Opportunity received a software tuneup that should improve its mobility capabilities. With the new load on board, Opportunity booted into it and began an initial checkout.
Providence RI (SPX) Feb 23, 2005 - Mars Express, Europe's first mission to the Red Planet, has generated a slew of new data about the mineral composition of the planet's dry, dramatic surface. In six new papers published online by the journal Science, an international team reveals clues about the planet's past hidden in the rock.
London, UK (SPX) Feb 23, 2005 - The discovery, by an international team of scientists led by University College London (UCL), the Open University (OU), and the Free University of Berlin, of a frozen sea close to the equator of Mars has brought the possibility of finding life on Mars one step closer.
