NASA's Perseverance rover on Mars has confirmed the successful collection of its first rock sample.
On Monday night, NASA announced that the rover had sealed the tube that contains the rock core, which is slightly thicker than a pencil, and put it away for safekeeping in its belly. That and other collected samples will be dropped to the ground to be collected by another spacecraft.
Success! Perseverance Mars Rover Finally Collects Its First Rock Core - Scientific American
When the rover first attempted the manoeuvre, on 6 August, the rock it was trying to sample crumbled into powder before making it into a sample tube.
How Rochette fits into that history isn’t yet clear. The rock comes from an area that mission scientists dubbed Citadelle, the French word for castle, because it stands high on a ridgeline like a citadel overlooking a valley.
China's Tianwen-1 Mars mission is going offline for a while | Space
China's Tianwen-1 Mars mission — both the orbiter and Zhurong rover — will suspend operations for about 50 days starting in mid-September.
"During that time, the Earth, Mars and the sun will almost be in a straight line and the distance between Earth and Mars will be farthest," Zhang Rongqiao of the China National Space Administration (CNSA) told the People's Daily , a newspaper published by the Chinese Communist Party.
EarthSky | Blue and Gold orbiters bound for Mars in 2024
ESCAPADE stands for Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers. The University of California, Berkeley, is taking the lead on the mission. It’ll study Mars’ magnetosphere and atmosphere, and the solar wind .
The recent mission review – called Key Decision Point C – ended August 17. So now the mission has moved into its next phase. Specifically, the coming phase will include the final design and building of the instruments that’ll ride aboard the Blue and Gold orbiters.
After six months on Mars, NASA's tiny copter is still flying high
"Everything is working so well," said Josh Ravich, the head of Ingenuity's mechanical engineering team. "We're doing better on the surface than we had expected."
Hundreds of people contributed to the project, though only about a dozen currently retain day-to-day roles.
Mars Is Bombarded With Radiation, But We May Have Just Found Natural Shelter
Mars is bombarded with radiation. Without a protective magnetic shield and a thick atmosphere like Earth's, radiation from space has a nearly unimpeded path to the Martian surface. Our machines can roam around on the surface and face all that radiation with impunity.
How can any potential human explorers cope with that? Well, they'll need shelter. And they'll either have to bring it along with them or build it there somehow.
Human Space Missions to Mars Shouldn't Exceed Four Years Due to Space Radiation Risk: Study | The
Ever since human space flight was made possible, space scientists have been dallying with the idea of sending humans to Mars. Hollywood flirts with the idea of future humans colonising the red planet now and then and has given us iconic films like Total Recall (1990) and The Martian (2015).
Therefore, colonising the Red Planet is still a distant dream! However, with multiple space agencies and even commercial space companies planning missions to Mars in the coming decade, fiction might turn into reality one day.
Bloomberg - Are you a robot?
Mars Missions Can Only Last 4 Years Due to Radiation - ExtremeTech
As the world once again sets its sights on the moon, it can seem like continuing on to Mars is the next logical step. Some space travel fans like Elon Musk have talked excitedly about seeding Maritan colonies within the next decade, but a new study from UCLA could put a damper on such plans.
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