It's some next-level skywatching: Scientists are using images captured by NASA's InSight lander to look for meteors on Mars .
From a glance at the resulting images, the search seems straightforward: Countless streaks fill the sky. But squint a little, and the story turns out to be more quixotic. The images show mostly ghosts, the invisible made visible and the visible drowned out amid the illusions.
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The images come from a device called the Instrument Context Camera, one of two perched on the InSight lander. The camera was included to help scientists understand the neighborhood in which the spacecraft deployed its two main instruments.
While you're here, how about this:
The path to Mars could run through Lynchburg, NASA chief says | Local News | newsadvance.com
All about the laser (and microphone) atop Mars 2020, NASA's next rover
Scientists can also use the information from SuperCam to help decide whether to capture rock cores for the rover's sample caching system. Mars 2020 will collect these core samples in metal tubes, eventually depositing them at a predetermined location for a future mission to retrieve and bring back to Earth.
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SuperCam is essentially a next-generation version of the Curiosity rover's ChemCam. Like its predecessor, SuperCam can use an infrared laser beam to heat the material it impacts to around 18,000 degrees Fahrenheit (10,000 degrees Celsius) - a method called laser induced breakdown spectroscopy, or LIBS - and vaporizes it. A special camera can then determine the chemical makeup of these rocks from the plasma that is created.
Nasa is preparing to launch its most ambitious Mars mission ever | WIRED UK
In July, Nasa will launch its latest ambitious mission to Mars, as it lays the groundwork for a manned mission in the near future. An Atlas V-541 rocket will carry a new rover to the Red Planet.
Each of the rover's six wheels is 52.5cm in diameter – slightly larger than the wheels fitted to previous rover, Curiosity, which landed on Mars in 2012. Each wheel has its own motor, and they're attached to the rover via titanium suspension with multiple pivots and struts that distribute its weight evenly.
Quite a lot has been going on:
Carberry & Zucker: Are we going to Mars in 2020? | Fox News
NASA's Artemis program encompasses the development of technologies that could send humans to the Moon and Mars; NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine joins 'America's News HQ.'
Are we going to Mars in 2020? Yes! A convoy of spacecraft will be heading to Mars this summer, when four robotic missions from around the globe will be launched to the Red Planet. Among those missions will be America’s 2020 Rover, with a scheduled launch date in July, which will be NASA’s most ambitious Mars mission to date.
Discovery of 'rifts' and 'layers' above Mars may aid radio communications on Earth | Space
A NASA probe at Mars made a finding that could help scientists better understand radio interference at Earth.
The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft found structures in the ionosphere — an electrically charged zone of the upper atmosphere — at the Red Planet. Similar atmospheric structures on Earth are known to cause problems with radio communications.
MAVEN uncovered two types of structures in the Martian ionosphere : "layers" and "rifts." Both of these structures also occur in Earth's ionosphere, where they can interfere with local and long-distance transmissions.
The Downlink: Mars 2020 Ready to Ship, Christina Koch Sets New Record | The Planetary Society
NASA astronaut Christina Koch returned to Earth from the International Space Station (ISS) after a record-setting 328 days in space . She now holds the women’s record for the longest spaceflight. Koch was originally scheduled to spend just 6 months aboard the ISS, but ongoing delays with NASA’s commercial crew program prompted the agency to ask her to stay longer. This was her first spaceflight. Learn more about the International Space Station here .
China’s Yutu-2 Moon rover powered down after its 14th lunar day of operations . To avoid damaging its instruments, the rover must sleep during the frigid lunar night, when temperatures plummet to -173 degrees Celsius (280 degrees Fahrenheit). Yutu-2 is part of the Chang’e-4 mission to explore the far side of the Moon, where an ancient impact may have exposed the Moon’s mantle.
'You could fly to Mars!': 100-year-old Tuskegee Airman Charles E.
Across his long and barrier-bursting career, Tuskegee Airman and Brig. Gen. Charles E. McGee fought in three wars, flew 409 combat missions and — during World War II — helped rescue at least 1,000 prisoners of war in Romania.
But, on Saturday morning at the Smithsonian's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia, it was another number that most captivated Isaac Preston.
"He's 100 years old," Isaac, 9, told his (chuckling) parents, staring at the hand he had just used to shake McGee's. "He's 100 years old!"
Happening on Twitter
This picture is from Mars. It's probably not what you think. https://t.co/5rQB1mSl2e https://t.co/cAogt7juD3 SPACEdotcom (from NYC) Thu Feb 06 17:16:32 +0000 2020
