Latest news with #CuriosityMars
NDTV
4 days ago
- Science
- NDTV
NASA's Curiosity Rover Spots Coral-Shaped Rock On Mars
NASA's Curiosity Mars rover recently sent back black and white images of a rock on the Martian surface that looks remarkably like a piece of coral. According to the US space agency, the light colored, wind-eroded rock was found in the Gale Crater, which is a large impact basin on Mars. The rock is about 1-inch-wide (2.5 centimetres) and features intricate branches - just like a coral typically found at the bottom of the ocean. According to NASA, the recently discovered coral-like rock is believed to be a billion years old. The colourless image of the rock was taken by Curiosity's Remote Micro Imager - a high-resolution telescopic camera that is mounted on the rover. "Curiosity has found many small features like this one, which formed billions of years ago when liquid water still existed on Mars," NASA said in a press note. "Water carried dissolved minerals into rock cracks and later dried, leaving the hardened minerals behind. Eons of sandblasting by the wind wore away the surrounding rock, producing the unique shapes seen today," the space agency explained. "This common process, seen extensively on Earth, has produced fantastic shapes on Mars, including a flower-shaped rock," the statement continued. Previously, NASA's Curiosity rover discovered a similar-looking object last month. Nicknamed "Paposo", the strangely-shaped rock measures about 2 inches (5 cm). It is a tiny, flower-shaped object that the rover photographed in Gale Crater. Notably, Curiosity landed on Mars in 2012. The rover's mission, led by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, is to scan the Martian surface for any signs that it was habitable at any point in the distant past. According to LiveScience, so far, Curiosity has traversed roughly 35 kilometres of the 154 km crater. Its path is meandering and slow, because it has to stop to drill into rocks, collect samples and gather data. So far, there is no definitive evidence of life on Mars. However, ongoing and future missions will continue to explore the Red Planet's habitability and potential for life.
Atlantic
6 days ago
- Science
- Atlantic
Photos: 13 Years on Mars
This week, NASA marks the 13th anniversary of the landing of its Curiosity rover on the surface of Mars. Curiosity has now driven more than 22 miles across the cold and dry planet, over the course of 4,620 Martian days, making countless observations and discoveries. August 5, 2025, 1:06 PM ET NASA's Curiosity Mars rover took this selfie in November of 2020, at a location nicknamed 'Mary Anning,' after a 19th-century English paleontologist. Curiosity snagged three samples of drilled rock at this site on its way out of the Glen Torridon region, which scientists believe was a site where ancient conditions would have been favorable to supporting life, if it ever was present. NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter looked down toward Mars on August 5, 2012, and managed to catch a glimpse of the Curiosity Mars rover as it parachuted to land on the surface. At upper left, you can see two white dots: The upper one is the parachute; the lower, the spacecraft and backshell. JPL-Caltech / MSSS / NASA This image looking toward the higher regions of Mount Sharp was taken on September 9, 2015, by NASA's Curiosity rover. In the foreground, about two miles from the rover, is a long ridge teeming with hematite, an iron oxide. Just beyond is an undulating plane rich in clay minerals, and just beyond that are a multitude of rounded buttes, all high in sulfate minerals. The colors are adjusted so that rocks look approximately as they would if they were on Earth, to help geologists interpret them. This "white balancing" to adjust for the lighting on Mars overly compensates for the absence of blue on Mars, making the sky appear light blue and sometimes giving dark, black rocks a blue cast. Curiosity photographed this feather-shaped iridescent cloud just after sunset on January 27, 2023. Studying the colors in iridescent clouds tells scientists something about particle size within the clouds and how they grow over time. These clouds were captured as part of a follow-on imaging campaign to study noctilucent, or 'night-shining' clouds. While most Martian clouds hover no more than 37 miles (60 kilometers) above the ground and are composed of water ice, these clouds appear to be higher in elevation, where it's very cold. That suggests these clouds are made of carbon dioxide, or dry ice. Scientific instruments mounted on Curiosity's robotic arm examine rocks on the surface on Sol 4616, or July 31, 2025. A drill hole and brush marks left by Curiosity after it collected a powderized rock sample on November 23, 2024. JPL-Caltech / MSSS / NASA A wind-sculpted dune field, observed by Curiosity's mast camera (mastcam) on December 12, 2015, during the 1,190th Martian day of the rover's work on Mars. The location is part of Namib Dune in the Bagnold Dune Field. Two views of a century-old penny on Mars, separated by nearly 13 years. This penny is part of a camera-calibration target attached to Curiosity. The MAHLI camera on the rover took this image during Sol 34 (September 9, 2012). The penny is on the MAHLI calibration target as a tip of the hat to geologists's informal practice of placing a coin or other object of known scale in their photographs. At right, the same penny is seen, rephotographed on June 22, 2025, or Sol 4577, showing almost no visible wear, with only a small coating of dust. JPL-Caltech / MSSS / NASA NASA's Curiosity Mars rover captured these clouds just after sunset on March 19, 2021, the 3,063rd Martian day of the rover's mission. The image is made up of 21 individual images stitched together and color-corrected so that the scene appears as it would to the human eye. The clouds are drifting over 'Mont Mercou,' a cliff face that Curiosity has been studying. Smaller than a penny, this flowerlike rock artifact was imaged by Curiosity using its Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on February 24, 2022. The 'flower,' along with the spherical rock artifacts seen to the right, were made in the ancient past when minerals carried by water cemented the rock. JPL-Caltech / Malin Space Science Systems / Texas A&M University / NASA A view of the two moons of Mars comes from a set of images taken by Curiosity as the larger moon, Phobos, passed in front of the smaller one, Deimos, on August 1, 2013. Curiosity casts a shadow, with its robotic arm raised, seen on Sol 4561, or June 5, 2025. Nearly 13 years of wear and tear have left parts of Curiosity's wheels damaged. Seen on Sol 4518, or April 22, 2025. Curiosity spotted this dust devil with one of its Navigation Cameras at about 11:35 a.m. local Mars time on August 9, 2020, while it was at the Mary Anning drill site. This dust devil was estimated to be about 16 feet (5 meters) wide. Contrast has been modified to make the dust easier to see. JPL-Caltech / MSSS / NASA This view from Curiosity's Mastcam shows a hillside outcrop with layered rocks within the 'Murray Buttes' region on lower Mount Sharp, seen on September 8, 2016. The buttes and mesas rising above the surface in this area are eroded remnants of ancient sandstone that originated when winds deposited sand after lower Mount Sharp had formed. Curiosity prepares to leave Gediz Vallis channel, an area that scientists believe may once have held flowing water, on Sol 4321, or October 2, 2024. JPL-Caltech / MSSS / NASA These yellow crystals were revealed after Curiosity happened to drive over a rock and crack it open on May 30, 2024. Using an instrument on the rover's arm, scientists later determined these crystals are elemental sulfur—the first time this kind of sulfur has been found on the Red Planet. Curiosity left a track in a sandy spot on Sol 2408, or May 15, 2019. Curiosity used its Mastcam to capture this mosaic of Gediz Vallis on November 7, 2022, its 3,646th Martian day. JPL-Caltech / LANL / CNES / IRAP / LPGNantes / CNRS / IAS / MSSS / NASA The dark, golf-ball-size object in this colorized view from the Curiosity's Chemistry and Camera instrument shows a grid of shiny dots where ChemCam had fired laser pulses used to determine the chemical elements in the target's composition. The analysis confirmed that this object, informally named 'Egg Rock,' is an iron-nickel meteorite. JPL-Caltech / University of Arizona / NASA The Curiosity rover appears as a dark speck in this contrast-enhanced view captured by the HiRISE camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on February 28, 2025. Trailing behind Curiosity are the rover's tracks, which can linger on the Martian surface for months before being erased by the wind. JPL-Caltech / MSSS / Texas A&M University / NASA Curiosity captured this view of the sun setting at the close of the mission's 956th Martian day (April 15, 2015), from the rover's location in Gale Crater. This was the first sunset observed in color by Curiosity. On July 26, 2025, Curiosity demonstrated a new multitasking capability while capturing this view. It snapped the 15 images that make up the mosaic while simultaneously communicating with an orbiter. The rover's tracks cross through a region filled with boxwork formations—hardened ridges created by mineral deposits from subsurface water billions of years ago. This boxwork region is in the lower foothills of Mount Sharp, a three-mile-tall mountain in the center of Gale Crater.
Yahoo
26-06-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Close-up images of The Red Planet's ridges from Mars Rover show ‘dramatic evidence' of water
Close-up images of a region of Mars scientists had previously only seen from orbit have revealed 'dramatic evidence' of where water once flowed on the Red Planet. The new images taken by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover raises fresh questions about how the Martian surface was changing billions of years ago. Mars once had rivers, lakes, and possibly an ocean, NASA said. Scientists aren't sure why the water eventually dried up, leading the planet to transform into the chilly desert it is today. Curiosity's images show evidence of ancient groundwater crisscrossing low ridges, arranged in what geologists call a boxwork pattern, the space agency said. 'By the time Curiosity's current location formed, the long-lived lakes were gone in Gale Crater, the rover's landing area, but water was still percolating under the surface,' NASA said in a news release. 'The rover found dramatic evidence of that groundwater when it encountered crisscrossing low ridges.' 'The bedrock below these ridges likely formed when groundwater trickling through the rock left behind minerals that accumulated in those cracks and fissures, hardening and becoming cementlike,' the release continued. 'Eons of sandblasting by Martian wind wore away the rock but not the minerals, revealing networks of resistant ridges within.' The rover has been exploring the planet's Mount Sharp since 2014, where the boxwork patterns have been found. Curiosity essentially 'time travels' as it ascends from the oldest to youngest layers, searching for signs of water and environments that could have supported ancient microbial life, NASA explained. 'A big mystery is why the ridges were hardened into these big patterns and why only here,' Curiosity's project scientist, Ashwin Vasavada, said. 'As we drive on, we'll be studying the ridges and mineral cements to make sure our idea of how they formed is on target.' In another clue, scientists observed that the ridges have small fractures filled with the salty mineral calcium sulfate, left behind by groundwater. Curiosity's deputy project scientist, Abigail Fraeman, said it was a 'really surprising' discovery. 'These calcium sulfate veins used to be everywhere, but they more or less disappeared as we climbed higher up Mount Sharp,' Fraeman said. 'The team is excited to figure out why they've returned now.'
NDTV
24-06-2025
- Science
- NDTV
Curiosity Examines Spiderweb-Like Boxwork Pattern On Mars. Here's Why It's Significant
NASA's Curiosity rover, which is currently roaming Mars looking for signs of life, recently captured an intriguing picture, showcasing a fascinating boxwork pattern. The photo was taken by the rover's Mast Camera (or Mastcam) on May 16, 2025. "NASA's Curiosity Mars rover captured this 360-degree view after arriving at a region crisscrossed by hardened low ridges called boxwork patterns," NASA said in a blog post published on June 23. Boxwork patterns on Mars are fascinating geological formations that resemble spiderwebs or honeycombs. Scientists were captivated by these patterns even before Curiosity's 2012 landing on the Red Planet. Scientists believe that these structures are composed of hardened, low ridges of minerals that have been left behind after groundwater erosion billions of years ago. NASA said that the minerals left behind by the water hardened like cement within the rock, which was carved away after abrasive blasting by wind. The process revealed networks of resistant ridges within. The Curiosity rover has been studying these formations in the Gale Crater, which is believed to have once hosted lakes and water activity. "Since 2014, Curiosity has been exploring the foothills of Mount Sharp, a 3-mile-tall (5-kilometre-tall) mountain within the crater," the post added. Here's why this pattern is important Curiosity has been learning about the Red Planet's unique environment, and the boxwork patterns suggest that groundwater played a significant role in shaping the planet's surface. These formations could hold clues to Mars' past habitability and potential for supporting life. Scientists believe that the minerals forming the Martian boxwork likely crystallised under conditions similar to those on Earth that supported early microbial life.
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
NASA shuts down X accounts as fears swirl about massive cuts to science initiatives
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has started consolidating dozens of its social media accounts. It'll archive platforms in coming weeks focused on the moon, the Earth's climate, the Perseverance Mars rover, and the Orion spacecraft: the Artemis program vehicle that will one day take astronauts back to the lunar surface. Some of the rudderless agency's accounts told their hundreds of thousands — or even millions — of followers not to be alarmed. 'Don't worry, my mission isn't going anywhere,' accounts for the Perseverance and Curiosity Mars rovers and the Voyager spacecraft assured on Monday. NASA said its social media portfolio had grown to more than 400 accounts spread out across dozens of platforms. 'While each account has served an important purpose in telling our story, our focus is to improve the user experience through more cohesive messaging. We are reducing the overall number of accounts for a simplified presence that continues to inform, educate, and inspire the public,' NASA's Commercial Crew program account explained. But followers voiced concerns that streamlining communications — reportedly from 400 accounts down to just 35 — may make communication even more of a challenge for NASA. Some said NASA was 'Thanos snapping,' or described the cull as "Red Wedding Stuff.' 'This account is/was a pioneer of social media,' space journalist Elizabeth Howell said of the Curiosity Rover account. Not everyone agreed. Spaceflight photographer John Kraus said the effort was 'long overdue' and the 'right direction,' noting that the Orion and Space Launch Systems accounts could be relegated to focus on one for the entire Artemis program. 'How can we inspire the next generation when over 100 accounts on a single platform flood it with frequent posts — often multiple times daily — prioritizing posting for the sake of their own existence over quality content? It's overwhelming,' he said of X. Jared Isaacman, Trump's former pick for NASA administrator, signaled his support for that take. It comes amid renewed concerns regarding further reductions in personnel and the recently released Fiscal Year 2026 budget proposal. A summary of the proposal said the Office of Communications would be restructured by eliminating functions 'not statutorily mandated,' consolidating duplicative functions, and automating 'routine tasks.' There are reports claiming this effort is already underway. Shifting focus largely on human spaceflight, the agency's proposal would slash funding for crucial initiatives that have been the product of decades of research at NASA. Those would include 41 space missions, the agency's climate monitoring satellites and top climate lab, the ongoing Mars Sample Return mission, and upcoming missions to Venus. In all, total funding would be cut by nearly a quarter, and the Planetary Society says there would be a 'devastating 47 percent cut to the agency's science program.' The budget still needs to pass through Congress. 'If enacted, this plan would decimate NASA. It would fire a third of the agency's staff, waste billions of taxpayer dollars, and turn off spacecraft that have been journeying through the Solar System for decades. Humanity would no longer explore the universe as it does today, and our ability to confront deep, cosmic questions would be set back an entire generation,' astrophysicist Dr. Asa Stahl wrote. Jacqueline McCleary, an assistant professor of physics at Northeastern University, called the proposed budget a 'strategic mistake.' 'Even if you want to dismantle a project or dismantle a satellite, it takes time, it takes resources,' McCleary said. 'You can't just lock the doors and [let] it sit in a warehouse forever. Sudden cuts like these are paradoxically very wasteful of taxpayer money because they're not controlled.'
