After zipping hundreds of millions of miles through space, the Mars rover Perseverance is just hours away from attempting to land on the red planet in what has been described as one of the most daring robotic maneuvers in NASA's history.
Carberry said the mission could reveal tantalizing new details about Mars' history and geology. But first, Perseverance has to stick its landing. And that will be no small feat.
"Once it enters Mars' atmosphere, the entire spacecraft is pretty much acting autonomously," said Janet Ivey, president of Explore Mars. "You can't send a message from Earth to divert it from landing on a hill or near a big rock. It's a nail-biter for sure."
While you're here, how about this:
Daily briefing: How feuding map-makers stoked Mars mania
Some populations of Baird's Tapir — pictured here in Costa Rica's Corcovado National Park — have declined by 99.9%. Minden Pictures/Alamy
Perseverance will explore Jezero Crater (shown in this artist's impression), the oldest terrain yet explored on the red planet. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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Hershey, Nestlé, Mars and Other Chocolate Makers Named in Child Slavery Class Action Lawsuit -
Many people give chocolates as a symbol of love on Valentine's Day, but for some the popular candy is more bitter than sweet.
A human rights group filed a lawsuit Friday on behalf of eight Malian men who say they were trafficked across the border to the Cote D'Ivoire and forced to harvest cocoa for one or more of seven popular companies, including Mars, Nestlé and Hershey.
"Enough is enough!" IRAdvocates Executive Director Terry Collingsworth said in a statement announcing the lawsuit. "Allowing the enslavement of African children in 2021 to harvest cocoa for major multinational companies is outrageous and must end."
Behold! See the 1st Mars closeup from UAE's Hope orbiter (photo). | Space
Just one day after arriving in orbit around Mars, the United Arab Emirates' (UAE) first interplanetary spacecraft, Hope, captured a stunning photograph of the Red Planet.
The new photo, which is the first since Hope's arrival in Mars orbit on Feb. 9, shows a smattering of clouds, four massive Martian mountains and the vast Valles Marineris — the largest canyon in the solar system — in the right side of the image.
"We couldn't have asked for a better day on Mars!" UAE Space Agency chairperson Sarah Al Amiri wrote in a tweet Sunday (Feb. 14). "Can't wait to see the science data come in so we can comprehensively characterize the lower atmosphere!"
Quite a lot has been going on:
Hope Probe Enters Orbit around Mars - Scientific American
After a nail-biting 27 minutes, the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) first-ever interplanetary mission has successfully reached orbit around Mars .
The spacecraft, dubbed Hope , launched July 19, 2020, atop a Japanese H-IIA rocket, then spent seven months trekking to the Red Planet. Today (Feb. 9), Hope needed to fire its thrusters for nearly half an hour straight to slow down enough to slip into orbit around the Red Planet, from 75,000 mph to 11,000 mph (121,000 kph to 18,000 kph). Mission personnel on the ground could only watch what happened and hope for the best.
A Bad Time for Mars Time - Eos
For the people operating Curiosity and earlier Mars rovers, the first 3 months after landing were like a big slumber party. Scientists from around the world congregated at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., to check out and begin using the instruments, huddling together over their consoles as the observations flowed in. They all worked on "Mars time," so their schedules slipped out of sync with the world around them.
For Perseverance, though, the excitement will be almost all virtual. Thanks to COVID-19 restrictions, most mission scientists, including those based at JPL, will work from home. Control rooms will be relatively deserted, as only mission-critical engineers and technicians report to campus, and some team members with family issues or other complications will have to eschew Mars time entirely.
Where Should Future Astronauts Land on Mars? Follow the Water – NASA's Mars Exploration Program
NASA Astronauts on Mars (Illustration): In this illustration, NASA astronauts drill into the Mars’ subsurface. The agency is creating new maps that show where ice is most likely to be easily accessible to future astronauts. Credit: NASA. Full image and caption ›
A new NASA paper provides the most detailed map to date of near-surface water ice on the Red Planet.
A new study appearing in Nature Astronomy includes a comprehensive map detailing where water ice is most and least likely to be found in the planet’s northern hemisphere. Combining 20 years of data from NASA’s Mars Odyssey , Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter , and the now-inactive Mars Global Surveyor, the paper is the work of a project called Subsurface Water Ice Mapping, or SWIM.
Happening on Twitter
"That descent stage takes us all the way down to about 20 meters off the ground. That's when we start the skycrane… https://t.co/di6UWzq3ZL NASA Thu Feb 18 04:37:00 +0000 2021
In ONE day, @NASAPersevere will attempt the most dangerous Mars landing to date on a mission to search for signs of… https://t.co/uN7W4kYB0j NASA Wed Feb 17 18:01:43 +0000 2021
The #CountdownToMars is on! We can hardly believe that the @NASAPersevere rover is just ONE day from touching down… https://t.co/e0rvLinlH6 NASAEarth (from Washington, DC) Wed Feb 17 22:11:51 +0000 2021
Our @NASAPersevere rover will search for signs of ancient microbial life on Mars. But where are the best places to… https://t.co/ATShYIavj7 NASA Thu Feb 18 03:04:06 +0000 2021
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