Blog Archive

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.

Curiosity artist's concept on Mars arm sampling

Sampling Mars, Part 2: Science Instruments SAM and Chemin

Posted by Daniel Limonadi on 2012/08/20 11:28 CDT | 5 comments

Continuing a multi-part guest blog series by Curiosity systems engineering team lead for the Surface Sampling and Science system. Part 2 explains the science instruments SAM and Chemin.

Fun for all ages: creating and mapping a volcano

Posted by Mike Malaska on 2012/08/18 11:26 CDT

Here’s a fun, cheap, and only slightly messy demonstration activity for kids of all ages, even 46-year-old kids: creating and mapping an ancient volcano.

Curiosity sees two wheels on soil, its shadow in front of it, a dark line of sand dunes, and a bright hill of the Gale crater central mountain in this photo taken from its front hazard avoidance camera late on the day it landed.

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.

A mosaic of 20 full-resolution images taken from Curiosity's left Navcam on the second day after landing shows the rover, with a dirty deck, sitting on a gravelly plain, surrounded by mountains.

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.

Deep Space Network Canberra radio dishes tracking GRAIL and STEREO

Astronomy Is Cheap, Too

Posted by Casey Dreier on 2012/08/17 11:45 CDT | 16 comments

There was upsetting news today, as the National Science Foundation's Division of Astronomical Sciences released a report that recommended divesting from several highly successful radio telescopes. The money in question, as usual, amounts to almost nothing. The effects, however, are massive.