Browsing: Mars

Trekkies might rejoice at the news that NASA has recently decided to fund a research group employed to study how tractor beam technology might become applicable in space exploration missions. The agency has awarded a $100,000 initial grant to a team of reserachers who will study  three experimental techniques involving capturing small-particle samples with lasers. […]

A virtual trek, that is. NASA has just released a stunning video comprised of 309 photos the agency’s Opportunity Rover took during it’s three year journey from the crater Victoria to the crater Endeavor. Although the spanned distance is only 13 miles, the whole trip lasted a whooping three years. Granted, a relatively animated view […]

A while ago I posted a piece on NASA‘s Spirit Rover last transmitted photo from Mars, before it ultimately died off completely after more than seven valiant years of service, time in which incredible volumes of photographs and other important metrics from the surface of the red planet have been fed. Like I said, a […]

As space agencies around the world, predominantly NASA, are considering building outposts outside Earth for the most likely far distant future, various difficulties need to be cared for. One of the most bugging and precarious one is the matter of energy generation. Without energy, you don’t have electricity to power labs, green houses, you can’t […]

The oldest, up to now, fossil has been found recently by a team of Australian and UK geologists, who claim that they’ve managed to discover micro-organism remnants as old as 3.5 billion years. These tiny living cells were actually sulfur feeding bacteria, which didn’t need any kind of oxygen to survive. The fossils were found […]

More than just a SciFi dream, Paypal founder and billionaire Elon Musk wants to make “man on Mars” a reality. Speaking at a recent spaceflight propulsion conference held by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics on Tuesday, Musk unveiled during his keynote how his company, SpaceX, plans on sending humanity to Mars in coming decades. […]

Captioned above is the very last piece of transmitted imagery by the now defunct Mars Spirit Rover (rest its soul; HA!), before the harsh Martian winter forced it into submission; and it’s quite the vista as well – the Columbia Hills. This was transmitted during Spirit’s  2,175th sol on Mars, when it got stuck in […]

Last year, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s low-res, grayscale Context camera cought a patch of new dark spots on the martian surface which weren’t there just two years before. Further, detailed investigations soon followed as MRO’s more sharp-eyed HiRISE camera went in for a closer look – its capable of spotting even beach ball sized objects […]

A successful manned mission to Mars would launch mankind into a new space era,  marking a historical moment; and however distant this prospect may be, scientists at NASA are already working on space suits tailored for the Martian environment. The NDX-1 space suit, designed by Argentine aerospace engineer Pablo de Leon with NASA funding, was […]

The joint exploration by NASA and ESA, encompassing joint efforts from the American and European space agency seemed like a dream come true for astronomers from both sides. Especially after the European side designed and started building the Mars Rover, everything appeared to go in the right direction. But the issues NASA is facing at […]