Mars is a planet wide desert with underground and polar cap water, but it’s general arid environment and occasional wind give rise to dusty weather events such as tornado-like dust devils and local dust storms. Every so often, one of these little dust storms expands and becomes a planet wide phenomena, and in early June this is exactly what happened. So what does it mean for our rovers and orbiters? Global dust storms are a recurring phenomenon on Mars, and happen regularly about the planet regardless of season. Every 3-4 Martian years (6-8 Earth years) one of these smaller storms...
In the past year or so it’s been interesting to see space agencies and companies produce movie-type trailers for scientific expeditions. The technology is there, and it is a proven way to inspire the general public. It also creates an opportunity to create some of the amazing science being done, even if it’s just a small taste. Space X has been candid about wanting to colonize Mars, and yesterday they released a trailer to give some inspiration to all of us. It shows a system that utilizes their nearly-established system of landing and reusing rockets, as well as refueling in...
This week marks the 12 year anniversary of the Spirit and Opportunity rovers, part of the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission. Only expected to last 90 days, Opportunity is still working. Not only functional, it’s still returning good data about Mars. It’s definitely taken a beating, and it has to be careful. Being powered by solar panels and not a thermonuclear generator like it’s younger cousin Curiosity means it has to be careful to stay in the sunlight. Dust on the panels certainly reduces their efficiency, but Opportunity has had some help from Martian winds to keep the dust from...
How do the Mars rovers compare in size and features? Here’s a great photo putting it all into perspective. Included are Sojourner, Spirit/Opportunity, and Curiosity, with a couple of testing officials at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. These are not the rovers that were sent to Mars, but are the secondary ones built for testing here on Earth. They cost a lot of money to build too, so NASA keeps them nice and safe.
