Articles

Emily Lakdawalla

Some interesting results from the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference on clay minerals on Mars and what they might mean about ancient water.

Emily Lakdawalla

On Thursday at noon PDT / 1900 UTC I'll report on some of my favorite findings from LPSC, and answer your questions about the latest planetary science.

Bill Dunford

A new slant on Martian landscapes from Mars Global Surveyor.

Emily Lakdawalla

A mind-boggling quantity of information is being presented at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference. In my first report from the meeting, I try to make sense of the Curiosity and Opportunity sessions.

Emily Lakdawalla

The news from the Curiosity mission today is this: Curiosity has found, at the site called John Klein, a rock that contains evidence for a past environment that would have been suitable for Earth-like microorganisms.

A.J.S. Rayl

As February turned to March, Opportunity was conducting some of its final science investigations on Matijevic Hill, the MER team was making preparations for the robot field geologist's trek south for the next winter, and the Mars Exploration Rovers mission was checking off another month of exploration.

Emily Lakdawalla

Last week the Curiosity mission made its first data delivery to the Planetary Data System. The bad news: none of the science camera image data is there yet. The good news: there are lots and lots of other goodies to explore.

Emily Lakdawalla

Over the last few days the mission has been working its way through its first major (not life-threatening, just really inconvenient) anomaly: a memory problem in its main computer.

Larry Crumpler

Opportunity completed the observations of the outcrop noted in the previous report and has now moved back down slope.

Mat Kaplan

Professor Bell's topic is

Emily Lakdawalla

There was a press briefing today to announce that Curiosity has completed her last major first-time activity: powder drilled from inside a rock at John Klein successfully made its way into the CHIMRA sample handling mechanism in the turret. Sol 193, then, marks the day that Curiosity is finally ready to start the science mission.

Damia Bouic

Damien Bouic received some well-deserved recognition from the Chemcam team for his great Curiosity image processing work.

Larry Crumpler

We have been seeing lots of small light-colored veins crossing through the outcrops here on Matijevic Hill, and we have tried to get a handle on the composition of these veins by doing multiple offsets with the APXS. It appears that the small veins are calcium sulfate, as best we can determine.

Casey Dreier

Bobak

A.J.S. Rayl

With its robot nose to the Martian grindstone, Opportunity completed its ninth year of working on Mars in January, making another significant science discovery in tiny white veins on Matijevic Hill as the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission rolled on into Year 10.

Emily Lakdawalla

Curiosity is inching her way through her first use of the drill on a Martian rock. She paused in the proceedings to capture a second Martian

Bill Dunford

Noctis Labyrinthus on Mars is an amazing place for an imagined day hike, courtesy of images from Mars Express.

Emily Lakdawalla

Remembering Rick Husband, William McCool, Michael Anderson, Kalpana Chawla, David Brown, Laurel Clark, and Ilan Ramon on the tenth anniversary of the loss of the space shuttle Columbia.

Casey Dreier

The Planetary Society remains committed to a balanced program of solar system exploration, with Mars, outer planets, and small missions all playing an important part.

Emily Lakdawalla

They're getting closer and closer to drilling. Curiosity now seems to be positioned in the spot where they plan to be when they execute that long-awaited first drill.