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Shock and Awe: Curiosity Laser-Blasts First Mars Rock
The laser-zapped rock “Coronation” — inset image was taken by the ChemCam instrument, featuring the small laser burn. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech After Mars rover Curiosity’s thunderous landing on Aug....
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Mars Shot First: Curiosity’s Wind Sensor Damaged
Hi-res self-portrait of Curiosity — taken with the mast-mounted Navcams. Debris can be seen scattered across the deck. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech During Mars rover Curiosity’s dramatic landing on Aug. 5,...
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Mars Rover Curiosity is a Steampunk Creation
The left eye of the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity took this image of the camera on the rover’s arm, the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), during the 30th sol of the rover’s mission...
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Unleash the MAHLI!
The first image to come from Curiosity’s Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) with the dust cap off. Credit: NASA/MSL-Caltech Ah! That’s better! Curiosity can see clearly through its robotic arm-mounted Mars...
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Curiosity’s Monster Dust-Covered Wheels in MAHLI Definition
On Sol 34, Curiosity’s Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) captured images of the rover’s dusty wheels. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Late on Sunday night, NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) website had a...
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A Martian Storm Is Brewing
This nearly global mosaic of observations made by the Mars Color Imager on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on Nov. 18, 2012, shows a dust storm in Mars’ southern hemisphere. Credit: NASA As the sols...
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Big AGU Announcements: Curiosity Team May Not, But What About Voyager 1?...
A view from Curiosity’s front hazcam of the sandy Mars soil the rover scooped samples of for analysis by its SAM instrument (NASA/JPL-Caltech) UPDATE 2: So it turns out that Curiosity does have data to...
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About Those ‘Habitable’ Exoplanets (RT America Interview)
On Monday, I appeared on RT America’s live news broadcast to talk exoplanets — particularly the three small (possibly rocky) worlds that orbit the stars Kepler-62 and Kepler-69. It was a lot of fun...
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Colonists Beware: Don’t Camp at the Bottom of Martian Hills!
Trails of Mars rocks that have rolled down the slope of a crater rim as imaged by the HiRISE camera. Credit: NASA/JPL/Univ. of Arizona. It’s always fascinating to see evidence of active geological...
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Curiosity Obsessing: Odd Mars Rock in Gale Crater
Panorama mosaic taken by Curiosity’s Mastcam on Sol 413 of its mission inside Gale Crater. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS, edit by Ian O’Neill As NASA has been shuttered by the insane U.S. government...
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On Mars, There’s No Asphalt
Curiosity’s right-middle and rear wheels, bearing the scars of 488 sols of rough roving. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech If you’re like me, you hang off every news release and new photo from our tenacious...
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Our Universe Is a Cosmic Mixologist Looking for the Recipe of Life
Creating the conditions of interstellar space in the lab has led to a sweet discovery The Egg Nebula, as imaged by Hubble, is a protoplanetary nebula with a young star in its core [NASA/ESA] What do...
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Wonky Star Systems May Be Born That Way
A nearby baby star has been discovered with a warped protoplanetary disk — a feature that may reveal the true nature of the solar system’s planetary misalignments [RIKEN] Textbook descriptions of our...
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This Weird Star System Is Flipping Awesome
The binary system observed by ALMA isn’t wonky, it’s the first example of a polar protoplanetary disk Artwork of the system HD 98000. This is a binary star comprising two sun-like components,...
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Life Beneath Europa’s Ice Might Be a Non-Starter
New models trying to infer the geology of potentially habitable moons orbiting Jupiter and Saturn hint at surprisingly cool, geologically inactive worlds, the opposite of what a diverse alien...
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Faint Fossil Found in Solar System’s Suburbs
A tiny rock has been detected in the Kuiper belt, which may not seem like such a big deal, but how it was found is. [NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)] We think we have a pretty good handle on how...
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Home Is Where the Mars Rover Is
Now that Opportunity’s mission is complete, many wistfully lament about “bringing our robot home.” There’s just one problem: it’s already home. A rendering of Opportunity on Mars [NASA/JPL-Caltech] I...
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What Might We Name the First Mars Microbes?
I, for one, welcome our new Mars desert-dwelling overlords. Just some random (terrestrial) microbes doing microbial things [MSU] It’s a question I’ve been pondering for some time: if we discover...
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How Gaia Is Already Shaping Our Interstellar Adventures
The space telescope has refined the stellar flybys of the Voyager and Pioneer probes—how might it help us chart our way to the stars in the future? The Gaia space telescope [ESA] When looking up on a...
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Toxic “Habitable” Worlds Could Be Havens for Alien Microbes
Don’t forget your spacesuit: Complex lifeforms, such as humans, would not survive on many of the worlds we thought would be interstellar tropical getaways [Pixabay] Worlds like Earth may be even rarer...
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