July 02, 2008 | ![]() |
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Phoenix Scrapes Almost Perfect Icy Soil For Analysis![]() NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander enlarged the "Snow White" trench and scraped up little piles of icy soil on Saturday, June 28, the 33rd Martian day, or sol, of the mission. Scientists say that the scrapings are ideal for the lander's analytical instruments. The robotic arm on Phoenix used the blade on its scoop to make 50 scrapes in the icy layer buried under subsurface soil. The robotic arm ... more New Soil Analysis Suggests It Rained On Mars Long Ago ![]() A new analysis of Martian soil data led by University of California, Berkeley, geoscientists suggests that there was once enough water in the planet's atmosphere for a light drizzle or dew to hit the ground, leaving tell-tale signs of its interaction with the planet's surface. The study's conclusion breaks from the more dominant view that the liquid water that once existed during the red ... more Swedish And Swiss High Tech On A Long Duration Balloon Flight Over The Atlantic ![]() At 7:07 local time on Saturday (28 June) a large balloon-borne experiment called MEAP(1) took off from SSC:s launch facility Esrange Space Center in northern Sweden. The aim of the flight is to perform tests of new techniques connected to the flight itself and to the new mass spectrometer planned to be used in the future on space flights to other planets. The gondola was lifted by a large ... more Phoenix Scrapes To Icy Soil In Wonderland ![]() NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander scraped to icy soil in the "Wonderland" area on Thursday, June 26, confirming that surface soil, subsurface soil and icy soil can be sampled at a single trench. Phoenix scientists are now assured they have a complete soil-layer profile in Wonderland's "Snow White" extended trench. By rasping to icy soil, the robotic arm on Phoenix proved it could flatten ... more 100 years on, mystery shrouds massive 'cosmic impact' in Russia ![]() A hundred years ago this week, a gigantic explosion ripped open the dawn sky above the swampy taiga forest of western Siberia, leaving a scientific riddle that endures to this day. A dazzling light pierced the heavens, preceding a shock wave with the power of a thousand atomic bombs which flattened 80 million trees in a swathe of more than 2,000 square kilometres (800 square miles). Even ... more |
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![]() ![]() The dramatic differences between the northern and southern hemispheres of Mars have puzzled scientists for 30 years. One of the proposed explanations--a massive asteroid impact--now has strong support from computer simulations carried out by two groups of researchers. Planetary scientists at the University of California, Santa Cruz, were involved in both studies, which appear in the June 2 ... more Game of two halves: Scientists solve Martian riddle ![]() For nearly 30 years, space scientists have wrestled with one of the greatest enigmas in the Solar System: why does Mars have two faces? Pictures sent back by the US Viking landers in the late 1970s unveiled Mars's northern hemisphere as an enormous lowland basin, where -- or so it was suspected -- a mighty ocean may have raged. But Mars's southern hemisphere is abruptly, bizarrely ... more Laser Fluorescence Could Find Life On Mars ![]() A team of scientists from the United States and the United Kingdom has developed a technique using ultraviolet light to identify organic matter in soils that they say could be used to document the existence of life on Mars. The researchers' proposed instrumentation could operate on any Mars lander or rover, they say, such as the current Phoenix mission or NASA's Mars Science Laboratory ... more Phoenix Shake And Bake ![]() The Phoenix mission landed in the martian northern plains on May 25. Since then, the lander's robotic arm has scooped up soil and delivered it to the science instruments for testing. The hope is that Phoenix will discover organic molecules in the red soil - if it does, that improves the odds that life could exist on Mars. Phoenix already has found evidence for water ice beneath the top lay ... more |
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![]() ![]() Harris has been selected for a potential seven-year, $58 million contract to provide the RF communications/navigation system for the next-generation space suit supporting NASA's Constellation program. Harris is a member of the Oceaneering International, Inc. team. The primary goals of NASA's Constellation Program are to maintain an American presence in low Earth orbit, to return to the ... more Mars Science Is A Sublime Affair For Phoenix Lander ![]() Dice-size crumbs of bright material have vanished from inside a trench where they were photographed by NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander four days ago, convincing scientists that the material was frozen water that vaporized after digging exposed it. "It must be ice," said Phoenix Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson. "These little clumps completely disappearing ... more Computer Glitch Delays Mars Phoenix Lander Work ![]() An information glitch aboard the Mars Phoenix lander has caused the loss of some non-essential images of the Red Planet and delayed the probe's work by 24 hours, NASA said Thursday. "The spacecraft is healthy and fully commandable, but we are proceeding cautiously until we understand the root cause of this event," said Phoenix Project Manager Barry Goldstein of NASA's Jet Propulsion ... more Space Radar To Improve Mining Safety ![]() Advanced ground penetration radar, originally developed to investigate the soil structure on the Moon and other planets on ESA planetary missions, is now being used in Canadian mines to spot hidden cracks and weaknesses in mine roofs. Using space technology developed for ESA for the special ground penetration radar GINGER (Guidance and Into-the-Ground Exploration Radar) that will be ... more
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