I love to discuss Mars rovers. The thought of robots roaming around the empty red desert, doing science in pure form, unmasking the surprising history of our red neighbour, it’s exciting and it’s the frontier of discovery. The limits of science and engineering are pushed as we send complex machines to travel further than any human in history. But with such a marvellous feat, issues can arise, and when they do, the nearest mechanic is 55 Million Km away. On February 27th, during the transfer of a sample of dust from the rover’s drill to its instruments, the rover suffered...
It’s been an amazing week for detection and study of water in our Solar system. Just last week we received the first results of the Rosetta mission’s analysis of water from comet 67P. Now we’ve received the latest breakthrough from the Curiosity Rover on Mars, results on Water, Methane, and even Organic material! The Sample Analysis at Mars instrument (SAM) took measurements of the Martian atmosphere over a period of 20 months, and for two of these months in late 2013 and early 2014, the Methane levels were 10 times as high as measurements before and after the spike. “This temporary...
In a press conference yesterday, NASA officials revealed the latest data from the Curiosity rover mission on Mars. The data shows that the Rover’s current location, at the base of Mount Sharp in the Gale Crater, was once deep underwater, part of a vast lake filling the entire crater. The results suggest that ancient Mars had a climate that could sustain large lakes across the planet over millions of years. “If our hypothesis for Mount Sharp holds up, it challenges the notion that warm and wet conditions were transient, local, or only underground on Mars,” said Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity deputy...
