Moffett Field - Sep 09, 2003 - Like all good exploration vessels, each of the Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, includes a mast. Instead of a crow's nest and a lookout, however, the rover mast-a little more than a meter tall-is topped by a pair of cameras-collectively called the Pancam (panoramic camera)-that can image the scene around the rover as sharply as a person with 20-20 vision.
Fayetteville - Sep 04, 2003 - A team of researchers from the University of Arkansas has measured water evaporation rates under Mars-like conditions, and their findings favor the presence of surface water on the planet. Water on the planet's surface makes the existence of past or present life on Mars a little more likely, according to the group.
Denver - Sep 04, 2003 - Space Imaging is releasing two images of Mars taken by its Ikonos satellite as the red planet and Earth reached their closest proximity in nearly 60,000 years. At that point which occurred last week, Mars was 34.6 million miles (55.6 million kilometers) away.
Las Cruces - Sep 03, 2003 - As telescopes around the world focus on Mars because of its historic nearness to Earth, two NASA spacecraft are hurtling toward the Red Planet to look for evidence that it might once have been wet enough to sustain life.
Moffett Field - Sep 01, 2003 - Leave it to Bill Nye the Science Guy to turn a traditional piece of calibration equipment into a really cool, state-of-the-art scientific instrument.
Sydney - Aug 28, 2003 - As Mars makes its closest approach in almost 60,000 years, two Australian astronomers have used the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) in Hawai'i to look for signs that the planet once had liquid water - and so may have hosted life.
Paris - Aug 26, 2003 - On 27 August 2003, Mars is less than 56 million kilometres away -- approaching closer to our planet than it has done in over 60,000 years.
Huntsville - Aug 26, 2003 - When astronauts first go to Mars, it'll be difficult for them to bring everything they need to survive. Even the first tentative explorations could last as long as two years--but spaceships can only carry a limited amount.
Tempe - Aug 26, 2003 - After a decades-long quest, scientists analyzing data from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft have at last found critical evidence the spacecraft's infrared spectrometer instrument was built to search for: the presence of water-related carbonate minerals on the surface of Mars.
Baltimore - Aug 20, 2003 - NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (HST) will make observations of the planet Mars on Aug. 26-27, when Earth and Mars will be closer together than they have been in the last 60,000 years.
Santa Barbara - Aug 12, 2003 - All the flight software aboard the two Mars Exploration Rover missions was written by engineers from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) using software development tools from Green Hills Software.
Tucson - Aug 11, 2003 - In May 2008, the progeny of two promising U.S. missions to Mars will deploy a lander to the water-ice-rich northern polar region, dig with a robotic arm into arctic terrain for clues on the history of water, and search for environments suitable for microbes.
Boston - Aug 11, 2003 - Late in August the planet Mars -- the most Earthlike world known beyond our own -- will pass closer to Earth than it has done in nearly 60,000 years.
Huntsville - Aug 11, 2003 - The south polar ice cap of Mars is receding, revealing frosty mountains, rifts and curious dark spots.
Melbourne - Aug 11, 2003 - Giant hollow towers of ice formed by steaming volcanic vents on Ross Island, Antarctica are providing clues about where to hunt for life on Mars.
Scottsdale - Aug 01, 2003 - Recent evidence of vast amounts of water ice on Mars supports the possibility of indigenous life. At the same time, that water could enable human settlement and massive environmental engineering, or terraforming. A moral conflict could face us soon, pitting Terrestrial life against the Martian. The course of action we choose should be informed by broad debate: the ethics, as much as the biology, of Mars deserves full exploration.
