When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. New research suggests that most of the solar system’s inner rocky planets once orbited the sun in perfect harmony. | Credit: SCIEPRO/Getty Images Four of the solar system‘s terrestrial planets, including Earth and a long-lost world, likely started life waltzing around the sun …
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Flawed Tests on Earth May Explain Why NASA’s Rovers Get Stuck on Mars
In the spring of 2019, the six-wheeled Spirit rover was driving backwards to drag an inoperable front right wheel when it got stuck on the sandy Martian surface. Despite spending months trying to excavate its robot, NASA could not free Spirit. Now, engineers from the University of Wisconsin–Madison may have figured out a way to better prepare NASA’s robots for …
Read More »Earth, Mars, Venus — and a long-lost planet — may have once ‘waltzed’ in perfect harmony around the sun
Four of the solar system‘s terrestrial planets, including Earth and a long-lost world, likely started life waltzing around the sun to a fixed rhythm, according to a new study. The findings also suggest that those planets formed earlier than previously thought. Astronomers have been increasingly interested in how planetary systems change their internal architecture on cosmic timescales, motivated by several …
Read More »NASA’s Europa Clipper Radar Instrument Proves Itself at Mars
The agency’s largest interplanetary probe tested its radar during a Mars flyby. The results include a detailed image and bode well for the mission at Jupiter’s moon Europa. As it soared past Mars in March, NASA’s Europa Clipper conducted a critical radar test that had been impossible to accomplish on Earth. Now that mission scientists have studied the full stream …
Read More »NASA Just Found Perfect Spheres on Mars – And No One Knows Exactly Why – SciTechDaily
NASA Just Found Perfect Spheres on Mars – And No One Knows Exactly Why SciTechDaily Source link
Read More »“They Locked Them Up to Simulate Mars” but NASA Volunteers Spent a Year Playing PS4 and Sparked Outrage Over Millions in Taxpayer Funding
IN A NUTSHELL 🚀 For over a year, four volunteers lived in a NASA simulation to test life on Mars, balancing scientific rigor with leisure activities. 🏠 The crew was confined in a 3D-printed habitat at the Johnson Space Center, simulating Martian conditions with limited resources and delayed communication. 🧠 A focus of the mission was on managing stress and …
Read More »The Last “Heartbreaking” Message Sent From NASA’s Opportunity Mars Rover—Lost in a Deadly Planetary Storm
When NASA launched Opportunity and its twin Spirit in 2003, the mission team was aiming for a three-month journey on Mars. According to NASA’s own historical records, each rover was built to function for just 90 sols (about 92 Earth days). Opportunity landed in Meridiani Planum, a site scientists picked because it showed signs of a watery past—minerals called hematite, …
Read More »“NASA Calls It the ‘Skyfall Maneuver’” as Plan to Drop 6 Mars Helicopters Mid-Air Divides Experts and Fuels Outrage Over Billion-Dollar Space Risks
IN A NUTSHELL 🚀 Skyfall is an innovative mission by NASA and AeroVironment, Inc. to deploy six autonomous helicopters on Mars. 🛩️ Building on Ingenuity’s success, the mission aims to enhance Martian exploration with faster and cost-effective methods. 📡 The helicopters will act as aerial scouts, providing high-resolution images and data to prepare for future human landings. 🔍 Skyfall could …
Read More »Good news for Mars settlers? Red Planet glaciers are mostly pure water ice, study suggests
Martian glaciers are mostly pure ice across the Red Planet, suggesting they might potentially be useful resources for any explorers that might land there one day, a new study finds. For decades, scientists have often seen glaciers coated in dust on the slopes of the mountains of Mars. Previous research suggested these were either glaciers that were comprised mostly of …
Read More »NASA Wants To Drop Helicopter Drones On Mars To Scout For Manned Landing Sites
In 2021, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab successfully launched the first powered flight on another planet with the Ingenuity drone helicopter, co-developed with AeroVironment, Inc. Now, the two are proposing to do it again, with one big change: They want to launch not one, but six new helicopters, and what’s more, they want to launch …
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