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Blog Archive
Pretty picture: rocks underfoot at Curiosity's landing site
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/09/17 02:54 CDT | 4 comments
An amateur-processed mosaic of some intriguing-looking broken rocks along Curiosity's traverse. They were intriguing enough to photograph with the Mastcam -- but not enough to stop and check them out, as Curiosity has already rolled on.
What if the Senate had a hearing on Mars and no one came?
Two out of twenty-five Senators bothered to show up to Wednesday's hearing
Posted by Casey Dreier on 2012/09/12 04:47 CDT | 3 comments
Today there was a Senate hearing on the future of Mars exploration, title "From Low-Earth Orbit to Mars" on Sept 12th, 2012, and only 2 out of 25 Senators came.
Action Alert: Senate hearing on the future of Mars exploration this Wed
Posted by Casey Dreier on 2012/09/11 05:01 CDT | 3 comments
The Senate committee responsible for NASA is meeting this Wed, Sept 12th at 2:00pm EDT to discuss the future of Mars exploration. You can attend this event and show the Senators that the public is paying attention.
A couple of gems from the archives
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/09/10 11:07 CDT | 2 comments
We're still working on migrating content from the old to the new website. This week, that means I am looking, one by one, through some great amateur-processed space images.
MAHLI sees Curiosity's wheels firmly on Martian ground
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/09/10 12:39 CDT | 3 comments
MAHLI opened its "eye" on sol 33, seeing Mars clearly for the first time. On sol 34, Curiosity used MAHLI to survey the parts that Mastcam can't see, including a view right underneath the rover.
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/09/07 11:24 CDT | 3 comments
Curiosity's much-anticipated self-portrait with the MAHLI camera just arrived on Earth, and even though it was shot through the dust cover it is AWESOME.
Outcrop Ahead for Opportunity!
Posted by Stuart Atkinson on 2012/09/07 01:12 CDT | 1 comments
Oppy is opening an exciting new chapter in her adventure at Cape York. Having driven down to, over and past Whim Creek, she has now explored halfway down Cape York, to a promising fin-like ridge of dark rock.
Pretty picture: bizarre spherules
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/09/06 04:25 CDT | 5 comments
A wonderfully strange photo from Opportunity's exploration of Cape York, Endeavour Crater.
Checking in on Curiosity after sol 30
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/09/06 03:54 CDT | 4 comments
Curiosity completed the "Intermission" phase on sol 29, and began checking out the robotic arm.
HiRISE's best view of Curiosity yet
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/08/31 12:50 CDT | 10 comments
HiRISE's best opportunity to view Curiosity so far came 12 days after landing, when the orbiter passed nearly directly overhead. The photo resolves amazing detail on the huge rover.
Manned Missions to Mars Aren't Just Sci-Fi
Posted by Louis D. Friedman on 2012/08/24 06:09 CDT | 9 comments
Space exploration is not just valuable to scientists; it is also popular with the public who pays taxes. And why not? The exploration of Mars is not only a search for signs of alien life. It is an exploration of the human future.
Explaining the new black-and-white Mastcam and MARDI raw images
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/08/24 05:05 CDT | 2 comments
If you've been obsessively checking the Curiosity raw images websites for new pictures from Mars, you might have noticed something weird: a bunch of Mastcam images and a few from MARDI that are black-and-white instead of color, and which have a peculiar checkerboard pattern.
The definitive version of Curiosity's first color panorama
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/08/23 06:15 CDT | 8 comments
The top of the mountain has finally been filled in, and Damien Bouic has produced what I think is the definitive version of Curiosity's first color panorama.
We're going back to Mars in 2016!
Posted by Bill Nye on 2012/08/20 03:57 CDT | 9 comments
Today, NASA announced the newest Discovery-class mission, a Mars lander called InSight. It's not a rover; it's a drill that will go down 5 meters and help us figure out what happens in the core of our neighboring terrestrial planet.
The first Curiosity 360-degree panorama including the mountain
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/08/18 10:45 CDT | 8 comments
Damien Bouic took Curiosity's Hazcam images of Aeolis Mons / Mount Sharp and merged them with a beautiful 360-degree Navcam panorama to give us our first look at what the view will look like once the mission finally gets higher-resolution images that include the mountain's peak.
Curiosity sol 11 update: Decision to drive to "the high thermal inertia unit" and what that means
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/08/17 06:06 CDT | 8 comments
Some notes from this morning's Curiosity press briefing: the rover will be driving to "Glenelg" to investigate the "high thermal inertia unit." I explain what that means, with psychedelic Odyssey THEMIS images of the landing site.
Some fun with Curiosity MARDI images
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/08/16 11:36 CDT | 9 comments
Yesterday Curiosity returned a pile of full-resolution descent imager photos to Earth. The full-resolution MARDI images are just as great as we anticipated.
Curiosity's Marsdial is on Mars!
Posted by Bill Nye on 2012/08/14 04:24 CDT | 6 comments
Following the successful landing of the Curiosity rover, it is gratifying indeed to see the third MarsDial© photometric calibration (cal) target on the planet Mars. It is something near and dear to me personally, and it's good for all of us, because it helps us do good science.
Curiosity's high-res Navcam panorama in striking color
Posted by Jason Davis on 2012/08/10 07:10 CDT | 4 comments
A color-processed version of Curiosity's high-resolution Navcam panorama.
Curiosity sol 4: EDL updates, rover ready for software upgrade
Posted by Jason Davis on 2012/08/10 05:16 CDT | 3 comments
A recap of the final Curiosity press conference of the week: lots of updates from the entry, descent and landing (EDL) team that safely deposited the rover on Mars, as well as an overview of the rover's R10 software upgrade.
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