RIMFAX at Work on NASA's Perseverance (Illustration): Perseverance's Radar Imager for Mars' Subsurface Experiment (RIMFAX) uses radar waves to probe the ground, revealing the unexplored world that lies beneath the Martian surface. Full image and caption ›
Unlike similar instruments aboard Mars orbiters, which study the planet from space, RIMFAX will be the first ground-penetrating radar set on the surface of Mars. This will give scientists much higher-resolution data than space-borne radars can provide while focusing on the specific areas that Perseverance will explore. Taking a more focused look at this terrain will help the rover's team understand how features in Jezero Crater formed over time.
Quite a lot has been going on:
The colorful walls of an exposed impact crater on Mars
HiRISE can operate in visible wavelengths —the same as human eyes —but it also uses near- infrared wavelengths to obtain information on the mineral groups present.
The HiRISE team said the colors in this image are enhanced in infrared, and the data shows three distinct bedrock colors: yellow, light blue-green, and dark blue. The colors correspond to different types of rock that were deposited from the impact as nearly flat-lying sheets, perhaps a combination of lava flows and sediments.
News | AI Is Helping Scientists Discover Fresh Craters on Mars
Build your own space agency with 'Mars Horizon' and try a free demo now (exclusive video) | Space
It's time to virtually race to space at the head of a space agency — your choice of the European Space Agency, United States, Russia and more.
Space.com got an exclusive look at " Mars Horizon ," a space agency simulator game, which is available for free on Steam today (Oct. 7) as part of the Steam Game Festival. The offer ends Oct. 13 and comes just in time for World Space Week which ends Saturday (Oct. 10).
You can build your own space program to explore the solar system, starting with launching short trips to space and then progressing through milestones such as launching to the moon. In addition to ESA, the U.S. and Russia, space agencies for China and Japan are also available, according to a new gameplay trailer released today by Auroch Digital and The Irregular Corporation.
In case you are keeping track:
Mars is closer to Earth in October than it will be for another 15 years - CNN
(CNN) If you spied a fiery red star close to the full moon over the weekend, it was actually Mars shining its bright red light in the night sky.
NASA Finds Billion-Year-Old Sand Dunes Preserved on Mars, And They Look Familiar
Tucked away in a canyon on Mars , scientists have discovered a windswept field of solid sand, which turned to rock roughly a billion years ago.
Despite being heavily eroded, this frozen plain of palaeo-dunes has withstood time remarkably well, much more so than fossilised waves of sand on Earth, which are subject to the whims of wind, water, and the shifting landscapes of deep time.
Understanding how these duneforms stood the test of time could give us insight into the sedimentary processes on Mars and reveal something about the planet's geologic history at the same time.
Sols 2906-2907: Continuing to 'Grok' These Martian Sediments! – NASA's Mars Exploration Program
After a successful bump to our next planned drill location, Curiosity is poised to start its thorough investigation of this interesting geologic region. The team decided to perform a more detailed characterization of this location because of the presence of dark gray nodular features observed in this region. So, after maneuvering into position, Curiosity is ready to begin its characterization of the block in front of us and to prepare for drilling in the near future.
Curiosity’s observations will include ChemCam LIBS observations of the selected drill location (named “Groken”) and two areas of an adjacent block of bedrock material (named “Hella” and “Great Skua”). These two additional LIBS chemistry observations will help to understand any potential lateral and vertical variations in geochemistry, as these targets are located very close to each other but on different sedimentary layers of the same unit.
China’s Mars-bound probe returns self-portrait from deep space – Spaceflight Now
China’s space agency has released images captured by a small camera ejected from the country’s first Mars-bound spacecraft, showing the probe in deep space as it nears the halfway point of its seven-month journey from Earth to the Red Planet.
The images released by the China National Space Administration on Oct. 1 show the Tianwen 1 spacecraft traveling through the blackness of space. Tianwen deployed a small camera to take the self-portrait as it tumbled away from the mothership.
Happening on Twitter
I'm getting closer to Mars. Once there, I will use my "radar eyes" to see what's beneath the surface. My ground-pe… https://t.co/tra2o9nAz6 NASAPersevere (from Space) Thu Oct 08 22:29:56 +0000 2020
👀 We can't stop looking at this compelling visualization that @NASA released last year of how a black hole's gravit… https://t.co/RUUpIMBFF5 airandspace (from Smithsonian, Washington DC) Fri Oct 09 00:20:05 +0000 2020
NASA's Cassini spacecraft snapped this stunning group portrait of five of Saturn's moons in 2011. Janus, Pandora, E… https://t.co/EeILDpgNa7 NASAhistory (from Washington, DC) Wed Oct 07 22:30:00 +0000 2020
No comments:
Post a Comment