Latest news with #JimBell
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Mars Looks Strangely Familiar in Stunning New Panorama
With just a splash of color, the red planet's horizons can look remarkably like our own – blue skies and all. A 360-degree panorama, taken by the Perseverance Rover on Mars, could just as easily have been snapped in a rocky desert somewhere here on Earth. The difference lies in a subtle tweak to the color contrast. Related: "The relatively dust-free skies provide a clear view of the surrounding terrain," says planetary scientist Jim Bell, the principal investigator of the rover's 'eyes' – the two cameras of the Mastcam-Z instrument. "In this particular mosaic, we have enhanced the color contrast, which accentuates the differences in the terrain and sky." The only time the red planet's skies should look this blue is during a sunset – the opposite of the color scheme we see here on Earth. Yet with just a hint of color enhancement, the resulting landscape is strangely familiar. Looking through Percy's eyes across the jagged rocks, ripples of sand, and rolling hills, you can almost imagine you are standing in the Atacama desert. That stark similarity is precisely why NASA scientists are testing future rovers in the Chilean desert. Already, they have successfully detected molecular evidence of life there "in one of the most biologically sparse environments on Earth," according to a 2023 paper published in Astrobiology. The hope is that one day, these new-and-improved rovers will join Perseverance, Opportunity, and Curiosity on Mars to accomplish similar feats. But seeing the red planet through an Earthly lens is like wearing rose-tinted glasses. It sure looks promising, but as you can see from the natural-color version of the image, there's a lot that sets Mars apart from the Atacama. As the fourth planet from the Sun, Mars receives less than half of the sunlight that Earth does, and the volume of its atmosphere is less than 1 percent of that of Earth's atmosphere. Whether remnants of ancient life can exist under such hostile and destructive conditions remains to be seen… possibly with Percy's own two eyes. Related News The Perseids Meteor Shower Peaks This Week: Here's When to Look Up Atlanta Home Struck by Meteorite Older Than Earth 36 Billion Suns: Record Black Hole Discovery Could Be as Big as They Get Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Mars Looks Strangely Familiar in Stunning New Panorama
With just a splash of color, the red planet's horizons can look remarkably like our own – blue skies and all. A 360-degree panorama, taken by the Perseverance Rover on Mars, could just as easily have been snapped in a rocky desert somewhere here on Earth. The difference lies in a subtle tweak to the color contrast. Related: "The relatively dust-free skies provide a clear view of the surrounding terrain," says planetary scientist Jim Bell, the principal investigator of the rover's 'eyes' – the two cameras of the Mastcam-Z instrument. "In this particular mosaic, we have enhanced the color contrast, which accentuates the differences in the terrain and sky." The only time the red planet's skies should look this blue is during a sunset – the opposite of the color scheme we see here on Earth. Yet with just a hint of color enhancement, the resulting landscape is strangely familiar. Looking through Percy's eyes across the jagged rocks, ripples of sand, and rolling hills, you can almost imagine you are standing in the Atacama desert. That stark similarity is precisely why NASA scientists are testing future rovers in the Chilean desert. Already, they have successfully detected molecular evidence of life there "in one of the most biologically sparse environments on Earth," according to a 2023 paper published in Astrobiology. The hope is that one day, these new-and-improved rovers will join Perseverance, Opportunity, and Curiosity on Mars to accomplish similar feats. But seeing the red planet through an Earthly lens is like wearing rose-tinted glasses. It sure looks promising, but as you can see from the natural-color version of the image, there's a lot that sets Mars apart from the Atacama. As the fourth planet from the Sun, Mars receives less than half of the sunlight that Earth does, and the volume of its atmosphere is less than 1 percent of that of Earth's atmosphere. Whether remnants of ancient life can exist under such hostile and destructive conditions remains to be seen… possibly with Percy's own two eyes. Related News The Perseids Meteor Shower Peaks This Week: Here's When to Look Up Atlanta Home Struck by Meteorite Older Than Earth, Study Finds 36 Billion Suns: Record Black Hole Discovery Could Be as Big as They Get Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
What would Mars look like under an Earth-like blue sky? NASA's Perseverance rover just showed us
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. NASA's Perseverance Mars rover continues to beam home incredible sights from the Red Planet surface. This week, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) released an enhanced-color mosaic of 96 separate images taken by Perseverance on May 26, 2025 that together create an 360-degree panorama of a location on Mars called "Falbreen." This area contains some of the oldest terrain Perseverance has ever explored on the Red Planet, according to JPL. The image was taken on a day when the skies above NASA's Perseverance rover were clear, enabling the robotic explore to capture "one of the sharpest panoramas of its mission so far," according to a JPL statement. The panorama was taken with Perseverance's Mastcam-Z instrument and depicts a rippling surface nearby as well as hills in the distance some 40 miles (65 kilometers) away from the rover. One of the most striking elements of the image is the blue skies overhead — but don't be fooled. The Mars' skies never appear blue like Earth's, and only appear to be blue in the panorama due to processing. "The relatively dust-free skies provide a clear view of the surrounding terrain,' Jim Bell, Mastcam-Z's principal investigator at Arizona State University, said in JPL's statement. "And in this particular mosaic, we have enhanced the color contrast, which accentuates the differences in the terrain and sky." Aside from the blue sky, there is another element in this image that Perseverance's science team is excited about. A large rock visible to the right of the center of the mosaic is an example of what geologists refer to as a "float rock," in reference to a rock that was transported to its current location by water, wind, or even a landslide. This particular float rock sits atop a crescent-shaped ripple of sand, but the Perseverance science team "suspects it got here before the sand ripple formed," according to the statement. Also visible in the image is an abrasion patch, a 2-inch (5-centimeter) area of the Martian surface into which Perseverance drilled with its diamond-dust tipped grinder known as the Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT), capable of spinning at 3,000 revolutions per minute. A raw, more close-up image taken by Perseverance's Mastcam-Z instrument on the same day shows the abraded patch of the Martian surface in greater detail, revealing multiple cracks in the Red Planet's weathered surface. Perseverance landed on Mars on Feb. 18, 2021 in a multi-stage sequence that included an atmospheric entry capsule. The capsule had opened to deploy a landing vehicle featuring a "sky crane" that lowered the rover safely to the Martian surface before flying away and crashing at a safe distance to avoid damaging the rover. The roughly car-sized 2,260-lb (1,025-kilogram) Perseverance landed in a region of Mars known as Jezero Crater. Since then, it has been scouring the area for interesting geological features and collecting samples that NASA hopes to one day return to Earth. However, the fate of that Mars Sample Return program hangs in the balance due to widespread budget cuts at NASA. Private companies have offered to step in, but whether or not we will ever see Perseverance's samples brought home remains unknown. Solve the daily Crossword
Scientific American
23-06-2025
- Science
- Scientific American
NASA's Psyche Spacecraft, Exploring Solar System Origins, Is Back on Track after Thrusters Lost Power
The robotic spacecraft Psyche has regained propulsion after a snag cut its propellant system in April. Engineers had to switch to a backup system, and full thruster operations resumed last week. The satellite is now on schedule to fly by Mars in May 2026—and then slingshot into orbit around a very unusual asteroid (also named Psyche) in August 2029. The propulsion problem had put this schedule, and indeed the entire mission, in jeopardy for a while. 'In another few weeks, if some things we tried didn't work, the blood pressure would have started to rise,' says Linda Elkins-Tanton, the mission's principal investigator and a planetary scientist at Arizona State University. Why It Matters About 4.5 billion years ago, our solar system was a cloud of gas and dust with no planets. Astronomers used to think planets grew very slowly, over hundreds of millions of years, as gravity gradually clumped the gas and dust together. But more recent evidence points to a much faster process involving high-energy hit-and-run collisions among dust, pebbles and rocks that crashed together and then got blown apart within a short time. Some of these crashes might have melted metals to form a core (such as the one found at the center of Earth) and surrounded it with a rocky rind. Our planet's core is many hundreds of miles deep, however—too far down to observe directly and accurately. On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. But the asteroid Psyche, circling the sun between Mars and Jupiter, may have an exposed metal core. Radar reflections indicate this is at least partially so, says Jim Bell, an Arizona State University planetary scientist, who is in charge of the Psyche spacecraft's multispectral imaging cameras. 'If it was covered by rock, we wouldn't get the signal that we're seeing,' he says. That signal indicates substances composed primarily of nickel and iron. So a flyby of the asteroid could provide the first close-up view of what a planet's core looks like and answer questions about how it formed. What's Next The problem with the craft's xenon gas thrusters appeared to be caused by a defective valve, and when engineers switched to a second fuel line, the craft regained motion. When Psyche meets up with its asteroid namesake in 2029, the probe's instruments should be able to detect any uncovered core metal that collisions have blasted clean of rock. The orientation of magnetic particles in that core, like tiny compass needles, could indicate whether the asteroid once had a magnetic dynamo, as Earth's core does. Remarkably, if there were impacts of debris on the molten metal, they could have splashed up and then frozen, leaving sharp cliffs for spacecraft cameras to show us. More about Psyche The asteroid Pysche orbits at about three astronomical units, or AU, from the sun (Earth's orbit is at one AU). It's often described as 'potato shaped,' with a diameter of 140 miles and a surface area of 64,000 square miles.
