February 17, 2009 | MarsDaily Advertising Kit |
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Spirit Gets Energy Boost From Cleaner Solar Panels Pasadena CA (SPX) Feb 14, 2009 A small but important uptick in electrical output from the solar panels on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit this month indicates a beneficial Martian wind has blown away some of the dust that has accumulated on the panels. The cleaning boosts Spirit's daily energy supply by about 30 watt-hours, to about 240 watt-hours from 210 watt-hours. The rover uses about 180 watt-hours ... more Detailed map shows dry Moon Washington (AFP) Feb 12, 2009 A new detailed map of the Moon released Thursday shows the Earth's satellite holds very little water and reveals never-before seen craters at the poles, an international research team said. "The surface can tell us a lot about what's happening inside the Moon, but until now mapping has been very limited," C.K Shum, professor of Earth sciences at Ohio State University, said in the February 13 ... more NASA Spacecraft Falling For Mars Pasadena CA (SPX) Feb 16, 2009 Launched in September of 2007, and propelled by any one of a trio of hyper-efficient ion engines, NASA's Dawn spacecraft passed the orbit of Mars last summer. At that time, the asteroid belt (where Dawn's two targets, asteroid Vesta and the dwarf planet Ceres reside), had never been closer. In early July the spacecraft began to lose altitude, falling back towards the inner solar system. ... more Martian winds help Earth's rover Spirit Pasadena, Calif. (UPI) Feb 12, 2009 Martian wind guests have removed some dust from the U.S. space agency's Mars rover Spirit, increasing its electrical output, NASA says. NASA scientists said the cleaning boosts Spirit's daily energy supply to about 240 watt-hours from 210 watt-hours. The rover uses approximately 180 watt-hours daily for basic survival and communications. ... more CSIRO Helps Mars With Sustainable Food Production Canberra, Australia (SPX) Feb 13, 2009 A research partnership between CSIRO and Mars Australia has produced a database and information toolkit that will be available to a wide range of food businesses to help improve their sustainability strategies. "CSIRO has worked with Mars to produce 'life cycle analyses' on a range of Mars's food products that are relevant to almost every major food commodity produced in Australia," said ... more |
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Pasadena CA (SPX) Feb 11, 2009 Communication problems during the Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday led to the postponement of a drive planned for sol 1791 (Jan. 15, 2009) to sol 1793 (Jan. 17, 2009). Once the drive began, however, Spirit was able to go ahead with characterization of a rock target known as "Stapledon." Studies began with a stack of microscopic images taken at different focal lengths, then moved to ... more Opportunity Update: Happy Anniversary! - sol 1770-1776 Pasadena CA (SPX) Feb 11, 2009 Happy anniversary to both Spirit and Opportunity for completing five Earth-years exploring the surface of Mars! Opportunity's goal this past week has been to put the pedal to the metal and acquire drive-by images of a crater dubbed "Ranger Crater." Preliminary results from last week's shake of the mirror on the miniature thermal emission spectrometer on sol 1771 (Jan. 16, 2009) indicated ... more Geologic Features In Martian Craters Suggest Deposition And Flow Of Water And Or Ice Tucson AZ (SPX) Feb 06, 2009 Scientists at the Tucson-based Planetary Science Institute (PSI) have found further evidence for the large role that water has likely played in shaping the Martian landscape. Their results provide strong evidence that multiple wet and/or icy climate cycles have shaped the topography of the planet's large craters. "Icarus" is the journal of the American Astronomical Society's Division of Pl ... more Antarctic Expedition Prepared Researchers For Mars Project Moffett Field CA (SPX) Feb 06, 2009 About half a year before the robotic arm on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander began digging into soil and subsurface ice of an arctic plain of Mars, six scientists traveled to one of the coldest, driest places on Earth for soil-and-ice studies that would end up aiding analysis of the Mars data. They used duplicates of some of the Phoenix spacecraft's instruments, plus other methods, in the Antarc ... more |
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Moffett Field CA (SPX) Jan 30, 2009 The desire to contact intelligent life on other planets is much older than the UFO craze and the SETI movement. Several 19th century scientists contemplated how we might communicate with possible Martians and Venusians. These early proposals - which predate by 150 years the first extraterrestrial message that was sent in 1974 - were based on visual signals, as the invention of radio was ... more Mars Rover Team Diagnosing Unexpected Behavior Pasadena CA (JPL) Jan 29, 2009 The team operating NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit plans diagnostic tests this week after Spirit did not report some of its weekend activities, including a request to determine its orientation after an incomplete drive. On Sunday, during the 1,800th Martian day, or sol, of what was initially planned as a 90-sol mission on Mars, information radioed from Spirit indicated the rover had ... more NASA-Derived Technology Captures Unique Inaugural Image Washington DC (SPX) Jan 29, 2009 NASA spinoff technology from the Mars exploration rovers was used to capture a unique panoramic image of President Obama's inaugural address at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 20. A photographer at the inauguration, David Bergman, used the Gigapan camera system to generate an image from a press platform. The resulting picture is a combination of 220 images with an overall size of 1,474 mega ... more USRA Selects Awardees For LCROSS Observation Campaign Columbia MD (SPX) Jan 29, 2009 The Universities Space Research Association (USRA) is proud to announce the selection for funding of four proposals for scientific activities to be carried out under the LCROSS Observation Campaign. The Observation Campaign is part of the NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) project which is designed to verify the presence or absence of water ice on the Moon. Sche ... more |
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