Latest news with #Curiosity
News18
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- News18
A YouTuber Is Taking Humans To Space For Free. You Can Keep The Astronaut Suit At Home
Last Updated: Mark Rober, a NASA engineer turned YouTube launched a selfie satellite 'SAT GUS' to space for humans to capture a selfie with Earth in the background. Who Is In Space? A website devised just for space nerds gives us real-time updates of the humans currently living far away from our pale, blue dot. And if you are curious, there are 13 humans in the space at the time of writing this article. Here comes the fun part: You can be the next human up there. Assuming (politely) that you do not have a bunch of spare crores lying around to book a seat on one of those ridiculous commercial space joyrides that billionaires routinely take, a NASA engineer turned YouTuber is here to save you money and the effort. 'I Spent $5,000,000 So You Can Go To Space For FREE," Mark Rober titled his most recent YouTube video. There must be some catch, right? Mark Rober YouTube's very own science educator and inventor Mark Rober is no ordinary online content creator. Rober has spent nine years at NASA, seven of which were spent on working on the Curiosity rover at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The 45-year-old has also worked at the tech giant Apple. Here, he was employed as a product designer in company's Special Projects Group and worked on virtual reality projects. The enginerd 's resume is as impressive as they come but now he's found fighting seed-stealing squirrels and glittery porch pirates in a corner of the Internet. Rober's newest project, however, has cost him over Rs 42 crore and it could perhaps be his most ambitious project on YouTube yet. Crunch Labs Created by Rober, Crunch Labs is a toy company for kids who 'think like an engineer". The Build Boxes work the same way as assembling a Lego does, except, Rober teaches a science lesson with every new box sent out while the kids get busy building their new toy. (Crunch Labs) Rober's recent Space Selfie project comes under his toy company and pet project Crunch Labs. Space Selfie The science educator, along with his dedicated team, launched a satellite in January this year to help humans take a Space Selfie. Made up of 7836 parts, the satellite nicknamed 'SAT GUS" left the planet aboard Elon Musk's SpaceX Falcon 9. He, in his video, revealed he and his team spent three years on this project. 'I slept as poorly last night as I have in over a year," Rober said on the day of the launch of satellite named after the channel's beloved squirrel 'Phat Gus". 'I am very nervous. There's just a lot at stake here. There's just so many things that could go wrong, not just today, but as the satellite goes up that… it's like that nervous excitement pit in your stomach that makes you want to jump for joy and puke in the toilet." How To Apply? Carrying a Google Pixel screen, the YouTuber's satellite is decked with a Redwire Argus camera. All you have to do is submit your selfie to the website The team will then transfer your selfie wirelessly to the SAT GUS satellite. The onboard camera will snap a photo of the Earth while displaying your selfie on the mounted screen in the foreground. 'I made a secret promise. If we somehow pull this off, I will make use of the selfie satellite free forever to anyone on the planet." Those who have seen Mark Rober accumulate nearly 70 million subscribers on the platform were left in complete awe when the video dropped on May 24. 'Mark Rober just redefined what YouTube should be in 2025: turning childhood dreams into reality, sending selfies to space, and proving that with science, passion, and $5 million, even a squirrel can make history. Thank you for the inspiration, the tears, and the reminder that 'impossible' is just another challenge to solve," a YouTube commenter wrote. 'Mark is actually such a talented engineer despite retiring from NASA, respect to him, he also influenced me a lot into becoming a Mechanical Engineer," another wrote. 'My selfie's gonna be out of this world," a third added. Watch India Pakistan Breaking News on CNN-News18. Get Latest Updates on Movies, Breaking News On India, World, Live Cricket Scores, And Stock Market Updates. Also Download the News18 App to stay updated! tags : mark rober YouTube Location : New Delhi, India, India First Published: May 30, 2025, 12:29 IST News explainers A YouTuber Is Taking Humans To Space For Free. You Can Keep The Astronaut Suit At Home
Time of India
24-05-2025
- Science
- Time of India
Watch: NASA's Curiosity rover sends immersive landscape's video of Mars
At first glance, this panoramic view might resemble a sunlit desert in the American Southwest, with quiet ridges, earthy tones, and distant peaks. But look closer: you're actually seeing Mars. Captured by NASA 's Curiosity rover from the slopes of the three-mile-high Mount Sharp inside Gale Crater, this surreal landscape is part of a stunning 30-second video showing what the Red Planet looks like up close. What seems like mountain ranges is actually the rim of an ancient crater, created billions of years ago by a massive asteroid impact. It's the next best thing to hiking Mars without a spacesuit. NASA shares Earth like visuals from Mars The panoramic video was captured earlier this year while Curiosity explored a region known as the sulfate-bearing unit. Rich in salty minerals likely left behind by evaporating streams and ponds, the terrain provides a window into Mars' past, when water was more abundant and the climate was more Earth-like. These features help scientists understand how Mars transformed from a potentially habitable world into a frozen desert. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like My Stepdad Demands I Pay Him Rent On My 18th Birthday. He Doesn't Know I Own The House So I Did This Beach Raider Undo NASA's Curiosity Rover's track record Curiosity, which launched in 2011 and landed in 2012, has traveled over 352 million miles. That includes about 20 miles rumbling over Martian soil. Last year, its wheels uncovered a surprise: pure elemental sulfur, a substance that on Earth is often linked to volcanic activity or even microbial life. This unexpected discovery continues to fuel scientific curiosity about the planet's potential to have once supported life. Curiosity's next stop to 'Boxwork' Curiosity's next stop is a strange terrain called 'boxwork,' where mineral ridges form web-like patterns across the ground. Scientists think this region formed when the last trickles of Martian water deposited minerals in rock cracks. These formations may hold clues about the planet's last habitable phases and possibly about ancient microbial life. More than just a drive Although Curiosity is not expected to reach the boxwork until late fall, the rover's team continues to pause and study the fascinating geology along the way. As planetary geologist Catherine O'Connell-Cooper puts it, "We're not just speeding past the cool things." Each stop offers new scientific insights and spectacular views from 140 million miles away.
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
A NASA rover just exposed something on Mars that eluded orbiters
A NASA rover taking rock samples on Mars has uncovered a plentiful mineral that was invisible to orbiters studying the Red Planet from space. Scientists say the discovery of siderite, a type of iron carbonate, could be crucial evidence to support the theory that Mars once had a thick carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere, allowing a warm enough environment to support oceans, lakes, and streams. Curiosity, a car-sized lab on six wheels, performed a chemical analysis of four rock samples drilled at different elevations of Mount Sharp, a mountain it has been exploring within Gale Crater. Three of the samples showed considerable amounts of siderite. Another sample, which had no significant traces of siderite, contained other iron-rich minerals that can form as siderite breaks down. This iron carbonate mineral is known to form on Earth under specific chemical conditions involving water, iron, and carbon dioxide. The study, published in the journal Science, suggests more carbon is stored in the Martian crust than previously thought. And if similar carbonates exist in other sulfate-rich regions, they could represent a hidden trove of Mars' ancient atmosphere. "The discovery of abundant siderite in Gale Crater represents both a surprising and important breakthrough in our understanding of the geologic and atmospheric evolution of Mars," said Benjamin Tutolo, lead author of the paper, in a statement. SEE ALSO: These scientists think alien life best explains what Webb just found NASA's Curiosity rover snaps a selfie image on lower Mount Sharp in Gale crater in August 2015. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS The results contribute to mounting evidence that ancient Mars had the right chemical and environmental conditions not only to have liquid water but also to trap and cycle carbon in the air — factors that may speak to the planet's past habitability. Scientists have had a long-standing theory that Mars used to have surface water. But for that to happen, the planet also would have needed to be warmer, with higher air pressure. That has led them to believe that though Mars' atmosphere is extremely thin today, it must have been thick and carbon dioxide-rich in the past. Volcanoes could have released large amounts of carbon dioxide into the air. Over time, some of that gas escaped into space, but enough probably stayed to support lakes and rivers. Over the past three decades, researchers have found lots of evidence that water flowed on ancient Mars. But up until now there's been a missing puzzle piece for the atmosphere within the rock record: Carbon dioxide in the air and water almost certainly would have reacted with rocks to create various carbonate minerals, so where are they? At a Martian site nicknamed Ubajara, NASA's Curiosity rover discovers siderite, an iron carbonate mineral that might solve a mystery about how the planet lost its thicker atmosphere. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS After drilling less than 2 inches below the surface, Curiosity used its CheMin instrument to conduct X-ray diffraction analyses of rock and soil samples, according to the new paper. The presence of siderite in them means the rocks likely formed in calm water like lakebeds, not volcanoes or lava. On Earth, siderate tends to form in shallow lakes and swamps. Curiosity also detected sulfates, minerals that form when water evaporates. Geologists glean clues about a planet's past from the order in which minerals formed. That siderite came first in the sequence suggests a gradual drying of ancient Martian lakes, leaving behind these other minerals. The sample that didn't have siderite but had evidence of its breakdown materials supports the notion that Mars' carbon cycle used to be active but became unbalanced over time. "Drilling through the layered Martian surface is like going through a history book," said Thomas Bristow, a NASA research scientist and co-author of the paper. "Just a few centimeters down gives us a good idea of the minerals that formed at or close to the surface around 3.5 billion years ago." If similar carbonates are found in other sulfate-rich layers across Mars, they could hold large amounts of carbon — perhaps equal to or even more than the carbon dioxide in Mars' air today. Future observations could confirm these findings and illuminate how the planet changed as it lost its atmosphere.
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
A NASA rover sent home an immersive Mars panorama. Watch the video.
At first glance, this view may look like a vista from a bluff in the southwestern United States. But those aren't ordinary mountains in the distance. What appears to be a sierra is in fact the rim of an enormous crater on Mars, formed when an asteroid slammed into the Red Planet billions of years ago. The vantage point is from the slopes of the three-mile-tall Mount Sharp, sculpted over time within the crater after the ancient collision. NASA's Curiosity rover captured this extremely wide snapshot as it traversed its extraterrestrial stomping grounds in Gale Crater this February. The agency has since converted that data into a 30-second immersive video, which you can watch further down in this story. It's perhaps the next best thing to actually hiking the chilly desert roughly 140 million miles away in space. "You can imagine the quiet, thin wind," said NASA in a post on X, "or maybe even the waves of a long-gone lake lapping an ancient shore." SEE ALSO: A NASA Mars rover looked up at a moody sky. What it saw wasn't a star. NASA's Curiosity rover snaps a selfie image on lower Mount Sharp in Gale crater in August 2015. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS Since its mission launched in 2011, Curiosity, a Mini Cooper-sized lab on six wheels, has traveled about 352,000,020 miles: some 352 million whizzing through space and another 20 rumbling over Martian terrain. At the time when Curiosity drank up this scenery, it was climbing a region of Mount Sharp known as the sulfate-bearing unit. This area is chock full of salty minerals. Scientists think streams and ponds left them behind as the water dried up billions of years ago. Studying this geology offers clues about how and why Mars may have transformed from a more Earth-like world to the frozen desert it is today. Almost exactly a year ago, the rover accidentally discovered elemental sulfur, its wheels crushing the material to expose a bed of yellow crystals. When pure sulfur is made naturally on Earth, it's usually associated with superheated volcanic gases and hot springs. Another way it can form is through interactions with bacteria — a.k.a. life. "We don't think we're anywhere near a volcano where the rover is," Abigail Fraeman, deputy project scientist on the Curiosity mission, told Mashable in September, "so that is a puzzling feature to find in this particular location." A 30-second video in the above X post showcases the vast Martian panorama. Now Curiosity is on its way to a new destination where it will study an unusual landscape, called a "boxwork." This region likely necessitated warm groundwater to form. And where there's water, there's potential for life — at least the kind scientists know about. Researchers wonder if the boxwork could have hosted ancient single-celled microorganisms. From Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter images, the land feature looks like a spiderweb of ridges, spanning several miles. Dark sand fills the hollow spaces among the lattice. Scientists believe this particular boxwork may have formed when minerals in the last trickles of water seeped into surface rock and hardened. As the rocks weathered over the ages, minerals that had cemented into those cracks remained, leaving behind the weird pattern. The rover's science team doesn't expect Curiosity to reach its destination until at least late fall, said Catherine O'Connell-Cooper, a planetary geologist at the University of New Brunswick in Canada, in the mission log. "Our drives are long right now," O'Connell-Cooper wrote, "but we are still taking the time to document all of the wonderful geology as we go, and not just speeding past all of the cool things!"
UPI
16-05-2025
- Science
- UPI
Mars weather: Clear with a low of 114 below zero
On May 12, weather-station equipment on NASA's Curiosity rover (pictured 2021) recorded a high temperature of 11 degrees below zero, and a low temperature of a staggering 114 degrees below zero. Photo courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech NASA's Curiosity rover has been roaming the Red Planet since 2012, taking thousands of pictures, drilling small holes in the planet's surface and searching for evidence of past habitable environments on Mars. It has also been busy observing the weather. Curiosity is outfitted with a miniature weather station that measures temperature, humidity, winds, pressure and ultraviolet radiation. These observations are sent back to Earth on a regular basis, and they help scientists understand the alien weather on the desolate world. On May 12, the high temperature was 11 degrees below zero, and the low temperature was a staggering 114 degrees below zero. A view of the Curiosity rover on the surface of Mars on May 11, 2025. Photo courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech It is currently late autumn in Gale Crater, the region of Mars where Curiosity is exploring, meaning even colder weather is ahead for the rover in the coming months. Temperatures on Mars can climb as high as 70 degrees during the summer months and as low as 225 degrees below zero during the coldest winter nights. And there can even be dramatic changes in temperature across just a few feet. "Because the atmosphere is so thin, heat from the Sun easily escapes this planet," NASA explained. "If you were to stand on the surface of Mars on the equator at noon, it would feel like spring at your feet and winter at your head." NASA has also documented Earth-like weather phenomena, including dust devils and shimmering clouds.
