Articles

Ryan Anderson

The Eberswalde site is interesting because it is unarguably the best example of a delta on Mars.

Ryan Anderson

The Mawrth Vallis landing site is actually a set of four possible landing ellipses in an area with huge clay mineral signatures that is cut by a meandering outflow channel.

Ryan Anderson

I am sort of breaking my own protocol here by posting about Gale crater before I hear the presentations today, but since we will immediately go into discussion and decision making after it is presented this morning, I figured that it would be good to familiarize you with it now.

Ryan Anderson

For those of you playing along at home, I thought I should point out that most of the presentations so far are posted at the

Ryan Anderson

The discussion and arguments are over! We are just waiting for the last few ballots to be submitted, and then the project science group will start counting them.

Ryan Anderson

It looks like the top three sites are Eberswalde, Holden and Gale.

Ryan Anderson

The next landing site that we heard about was Holden Crater. Holden is a 154 km diameter crater formed early in martian history that happened to fall smack in the path of an extensive fluvial system.

Ryan Anderson

This morning we hit the ground running and heard about a very interesting site: the Nili Fossae Trough. This site would land in a big canyon formed when a block of crust dropped down.

Ryan Anderson

The south Meridiani landing site is a newcomer to the bunch. It was added earlier this summer as a replacement for the north Meridiani site.

Ryan Anderson

Miyamoto crater is an ancient crater about 150 km southwest of where the Opportunity rover is right now. The potential landing site has some interesting mineralogy, particularly evidence for phyllosilicate (clay) minerals.

Ryan Anderson

We covered a LOT today, so I have decided to split things up. This post will cover the talks in the morning and then I will give each site its own post.

Ryan Anderson

It's almost time! Tomorrow the third Mars Science Laboratory Landing Site Workshop begins!

Ryan Anderson

One year from today, the Mars Science Laboratory will launch. It seems fitting that the workshop during which we choose the final three possible landing sites begins today.

Ryan Anderson

I'm in the airport on my way to California to participate in the third Mars Science Laboratory Landing Site Workshop, so I thought I would take this chance to post my blog entry from day three of last year's workshop.

Ryan Anderson

Today was a marathon of landing site presentations, ranging all over the martian globe, and targeting just about every potentially water-related feature on Mars.

Ryan Anderson

Coming up next week is the 3rd Mars Science Laboratory Landing Site Workshop, where the Mars science community will come together to narrow down the possible landing site choices for MSL.

Emily Lakdawalla

Don Davis is a space artist who takes the question of color in space very seriously.

Emily Lakdawalla

Here's another wonderful self-portrait silhouette by Opportunity.

Emily Lakdawalla

I was delighted to receive an email from Morten Bo Madsen, who I knew from the Mars Exploration Rover mission as

Emily Lakdawalla

I have posted several times about the amazing photo captured by HiRISE of Phoenix under its parachute as it descended. There have been two common questions I've received about the photo: was there any color data taken, and what more can I tell you about how hard it was to take the photo? I've got answers to both questions for you today.