Tag Archives: Mars

Current Affairs, Film & Movies, Politics, Science & Health, Television

How to watch Artemis 1 lift off on a lunar journey and what to expect – CNN

By Ashley Strickland, CNN, Updated 10:08 AM ET, Wed August 24, 2022

From YouTube…

(CNN) For the first time in 50 years, a spacecraft is preparing to launch on a journey to the moon.

The uncrewed Artemis I mission, including the Space Launch System Rocket and Orion spacecraft, is targeting liftoff on August 29 between 8:33 a.m. ET and 10:33 a.m. ET from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Although there is no human crew aboard the mission, it’s the first step of the Artemis program, which aims to return humans to the moon and eventually land them on Mars.

Editor’s Note: CNN Business video on the article page…

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/24/world/how-to-watch-artemis-1-launch-timeline-scn/index.html

Current Affairs, Science & Health

TIME: Is There Life on Mars? A New Study Offers Tantalizing Clues

By Jeffrey Kluger, January 20, 2022 11:54 AM EST

This low-angle self-portrait of NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover shows the vehicle at the site from which it reached down to drill into a rock target.
JPL/NASA

Mars is both a wonderful and a terrible place to go looking for life. On the one hand, the planet is a wasteland, where wintertime temperatures plunge to -153º C (-225º F), and the atmosphere—such as it is—is just 1% the density of Earth’s and composed principally of carbon dioxide.

On the other hand, the Red Planet wasn’t always such a wreck. For the first billion or so years of its 4.5 billion year life span, it was awash in oceans and seas and protected by a thick blanket of air. Eventually, however, its magnetic field shut down, allowing the solar wind to claw away the atmosphere and the water to vanish into space.

But that first billion years offered Mars plenty of time to cook up at least microbial life, some of which may have died and left chemical traces on the surface—or even have retreated underground to continue thriving in deep, warm aquifers.

Now, a new study, announced by NASA and published on Jan. 18 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that some of those lingering surface markers of ancient life may have been found—lying in plain sight, in fact.

Source: https://time.com/6140688/life-on-mars-clues/

Science & Health, Web & Technology

Scientists Just ‘Looked’ Inside Mars. Here’s What They Found | WIRED

InSight and Perseverance have sent back unprecedented data on everything from marsquakes to the Red Planet’s inner layers.

By Katrina Miller Matt Simon, Science, 07.22.2021 02:00 PM

Illustration: Nicolas Sarter/IPGP

While humans have been struggling to control the Covid-19 pandemic, baking in record heat, and trying to figure out how not to run out of water, our spacecraft on Mars have been enjoying a rather more tranquil existence.

(Not needing to breathe helps.) Parked on the Martian surface, the InSight lander is listening for marsquakes, while the Perseverance rover is rolling around in search of life.

This week, scientists are dropping an Olympus Mons of findings from the two brave robots. In three papers published today in the journal Science—each authored by dozens of scientists from around the world—researchers detail the clever ways they used InSight’s seismometer to peer deep into the Red Planet, giving them an unprecedented understanding of its crust, mantle, and core.

It’s the first time scientists have mapped the interior of a planet other than Earth. And yesterday, another group of scientists held a press conference to announce early research results from Perseverance, and the next steps the rover will take to explore the surface of Jezero Crater, once a lake that could have been home to ancient microbial life.

Source: Scientists Just ‘Looked’ Inside Mars. Here’s What They Found | WIRED

Science & Health

NASA Expands Plans For Helicopter On Mars : NPR

By ELENA MOORE, May 1, 20216:47 PM ET

In this image taken by the Mars Perseverance rover and made available by NASA, the Mars Ingenuity helicopter, right, flies over the surface of the planet on Friday.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS via AP

NASA is allotting additional time to test the operational capabilities of its groundbreaking Ingenuity helicopter, which completed its first powered flight on Mars less than two weeks ago.

Since then, the device has completed a total of four flights. If all goes well following its fifth voyage, NASA says it plans to jump start the “next phase” of tests.

“The Ingenuity technology demonstration has been a resounding success,” associate administrator for the NASA Science Mission Directorate Thomas Zurbuchen said in a statement Friday.

Source: NASA Expands Plans For Helicopter On Mars : NPR
Film & Movies, Memories & History, Science & Health, Web & Technology

NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Succeeds in Historic First Flight | PRESS RELEASE |NASA

Apr 19, 2021, RELEASE 21-039

NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter captured this shot as it hovered over the Martian surface on April 19, 2021, during the first instance of powered, controlled flight on another planet. It used its navigation camera, which autonomously tracks the ground during flight.
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Monday, NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter became the first aircraft in history to make a powered, controlled flight on another planet.

The Ingenuity team at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California confirmed the flight succeeded after receiving data from the helicopter via NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover at 6:46 a.m. EDT (3:46 a.m. PDT).

“Ingenuity is the latest in a long and storied tradition of NASA projects achieving a space exploration goal once thought impossible,” said acting NASA Administrator Steve Jurczyk. “The X-15 was a pathfinder for the space shuttle. Mars Pathfinder and its Sojourner rover did the same for three generations of Mars rovers. We don’t know exactly where Ingenuity will lead us, but today’s results indicate the sky – at least on Mars – may not be the limit.”

In this video captured by NASA’s Perseverance rover, the agency’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter took the first powered, controlled flight on another planet on April 19, 2021. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS

Source: NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Succeeds in Historic First Flight | NASA

Film & Movies, Science & Health

NASA’s Mars helicopter Ingenuity touches down on the Red Planet | Space

The Perseverance rover dropped the helicopter on April 4, 2021.

By Tariq Malik 3 days ago

The first helicopter on Mars is officially on Martian soil. 

NASA’s Mars helicopter Ingenuity touched down on the surface of the Red Planet after being dropped by its mother ship, the Perseverance rover, the space agency announced late Saturday (April 3). The helicopter’s first flight is just over a week away.

Source: NASA’s Mars helicopter Ingenuity touches down on the Red Planet | Space