…t will be a totally automated landing. Engineers here at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, can only watch and wait. The vast distance between Mars and Earth means there is a 13-minute lag in communications, making real-time intervention impossible. NASA has had to abandon the bouncing airbag approach to making soft landings. This technique was used to great effect on the…
NASA has reported that its Curiosity rover has made another significant discovery on Mars. Curiosity has drilled into a rock that contains clay minerals – an indication of formation in, or substantial alteration by, neutral water. Scientists say the find is one more step towards showing conditions on Mars in the distant past could have supported life. Many rocks studied previously were prob…
NASA’s Curiosity rover is very close to drilling into its first Martian rock, with the set-up operation likely to begin next week. After breaking for the holidays, the mission team would be raring to undertake the task in the coming days, said lead scientist John Grotzinger. The robot has driven about 650 m from its landing site, dropping down into a depression known as Yellowknife Bay. It…
Curiosity rover is getting ready to zap its first Martian rock. A small stone lying just to the side of the vehicle at its landing site on the floor of Gale Crater has been selected as a test target for the ChemCam laser. The brief but powerful burst of light from this instrument will vaporize the surface of the rock, revealing details of its basic chemistry. Dubbed N165, the object is not expect…
Curiosity rover has measured the Red Planet’s atmospheric composition. NASA’s robot sucked the air into its big Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument to reveal the concentration of different gases. It is the first time that the chemistry of the atmosphere has been tested from the surface of the planet since the Viking landers in the 1970s. The SAM analysis is ongoing but no major surpris…
iosity’s surroundings should be returned in the next couple of days. NASA’s Curiosity rover has just landed on Mars Engineers and scientists who have worked on this project for the best part of 10 years punched the air and hugged each other. The descent through the atmosphere after a 570-million-km journey from Earth had been billed as the “seven minutes of terror” – the t…
Curiosity, the world’s biggest extraterrestrial explorer has been launched today on a 354 million mile journey to Mars that hopes to discover whether the desolate planet was ever capable of supporting life. NASA launched Curiosity rover – officially called the Mars Science Laboratory – at 10:02 am ET today into a cloudy Florida sky. Curiosity, described by one expert as a “Mars…
…the Mars Descent Imager (Mardi), even in their thumbnail form, have now allowed engineers to work out Curiosity’s precise position on the planet – a latitude of -4.5895 and a longitude of 137.4417. Pictures from the Mars Descent Imager (Mardi), even in their thumbnail form, have now allowed engineers to work out Curiosity's precise position on the planet The full set of high-reso…
NASA has reported its first setback in its Curiosity rover mission to Mars. A sensor on the robot’s weather station that takes wind readings has sustained damage. The mission team stresses this is not a major problem and will merely degrade some measurements – not prevent them. It is not certain how the damage occurred but engineers suspect surface stones thrown up during Curiosity…
…as dispatched to hunt for organic materials and other chemistry considered necessary for microbial life to evolve. The $2.5 billion Curiosity project, NASA’s first astrobiology mission since the 1970s-era Viking probes to Mars, is the first to bring all the tools of a state-of-the-art geochemistry laboratory to the surface of a distant planet. But the latest images from Curiosity, taken at a…
The Curiosity rover remains perfectly on course to make its Monday (GMT) landing on the Red Planet, NASA says. The NASA robot’s flight trajectory is so good engineers cancelled the latest course correction they had planned. To be sure of touching down in the right place on the surface, the vehicle must hit a box at the top of the atmosphere that is just 3 km by 12 km. “Our inbound tra…
…ule ejected to shift its centre of mass and help guide its flight through the atmosphere. Satellite imagery has identified the line of craters these blocks made when they slammed into the ground about 12 km from Curiosity’s eventual landing position. NASA has also confirmed the precise timing of Monday’s touchdown. The rover’s computer put this at 05:17:57 UTC on Mars. With a one…
…220;We use gravity and vibration to get things into little parts of Chimra that make very controlled volumes of portions for us to drop off.” The rover has now driven at total of 484 m (of about 1,590 ft) since its 6 August landing on the floor of Gale Crater, a huge depression on Mars’ equator. It still has about 176 m to travel to get to a location dubbed Glenelg, a place satellite i…
…g site in the equatorial Gale Crater provides the first real ground truth for those observations. By luck, the rover just happened to roll past a spectacular example of the conglomerate. A large slab, 10-15 cm thick, was lifted out of the ground at an angle. “We’ve named it Hottah,” said rover project scientist John Grotzinger. The name refers to a lake in Canada’s Northwes…
It was expected to be just another lump of dull basalt, but the first rock examined up close by NASA’s Curiosity rover on Mars proved to be a little more interesting. The pyramidal object, nicknamed “Jake Matijevic” after a recently deceased mission engineer, had a composition not seen on the planet before. Scientists have likened it to some unusual but well known rocks on Earth…
NASA has released the first full color mosaic from its Curiosity rover on the surface of Mars. Scientists have remarked that the rover’s surroundings resembled parts of the southwestern US. Curiosity’s ultimate goal is to drive towards a peak – informally known as Mount Sharp – to study its rocks. NASA has released the first full color mosaic from its Curiosity rover on t…
…expected to be just another lump of ubiquitous Martian basalt, a volcanic rock. Its appeal was the nice smooth face it offered to the laser. ChemCam zapped it with 30 pulses of infrared light during a 10-second period. Each pulse delivered to a tiny spot more than a million watts of power for about five billionths of a second. The instrument observed the resulting spark through a telescope; the co…
…NASA’s $2.6 billion mission touched down on the Red Planet on 6 August (GMT). Much of the time since then has been spent commissioning the immensely complex, six-wheeled machine and its suite of 10 instruments. The Jake Matijevic investigation allowed the science team to use the X-ray spectrometer (APXS) and the hand lens (Mahli) in unison with the rover’s infrared laser instrument (Ch…
NASA’s Curiosity rover, which landed on Mars two weeks ago, turned its six wheels briefly on Wednesday to satisfy engineers that its locomotion system was in full working order. Curiosity is a sophisticated mobile science laboratory. It has been built to drive at least 20 km across the Martian landscape to investigate whether the planet ever had the conditions necessary for life. Wednesday’…
Curiosity rover has returned its first 360-degree color panorama from the surface of Mars. The robot used its wideangle science camera placed high up on a mast to acquire the frames. The low-resolution vista shows at centre the big mountain that lies in the middle of Gale Crater, the deep depression in which the rover landed. Curiosity rover has returned its first 360-degree color panorama from…
…stimated 50 victims. Christopher Chaney was due in court in Los Angeles on Tuesday to face 26 charges of unauthorized access to a computer and wiretapping. If convicted, Christopher Chaney faces up to 121 years in prison. Christopher Chaney, from Jacksonville, Florida, said in a TV interview he became obsessed with the stars and used his computer skills to hack into phones and email. Scarlett Joha…
…k for biological signs on the distant world. The ChemCam will fire a powerful laser pulse, vaporising some Mars dust and examining the spectrum of light shining through it. The robust system is one of 10 instruments mounted on the mission’s rover vehicle. When ChemCam fires its extremely powerful laser pulse, it will vaporize an area the size of a pinhead. The system’s telescope will p…
…A’s budget for Red Planet exploration would be cut back sharply; and many feared that if Curiosity was lost during its risky landing, they might not see another US-led Martian lander for perhaps 10 years. InSight – Mission to Mars’ interior • Launch window: 8-27 March 2016 • Landing: 20 September 2016 • Destination: Flat equatorial plain • Mission length: Two Earth years • Cost:…
Sinead O’Connor pulls out her appearance on The Late Late Show. Sinead O’Connor has openly written about her nonexistent intimate life in a bizarre online blog. In a blog post entitled, “Is Sinead About To H**p Her Truck?”, Sinead O’Connor, 44, bemoans her lack of sex life, writing: “I am in the peak of my sexual prime and way too lovely to be living like a nun. and it’…
Liam Gallagher, former Oasis front-man is suing brother Noel for what he claims are “lies” over the band split in 2009. Liam Gallagher, who has re-launched his music career as front-man of Beady Eye, has filed a High Court action against Noel Gallagher’s claim that he pulled out of a 2009 headline performance at V festival due to a “hangover”. He also has bee…
Eurovision 2013 winner is Denmark’s Emmelie de Forest with Only Teardrops
Zahra Shahid Hussain shot dead in Karachi
Phil Robertson, Miss Kay and Uncle Si do commercials for Clayton Homes
Manotox: Nip+Fab man only anti-ageing product claims to reduce wrinkles and fine lines without surgery
Eurovision winners over the years. Where are they now?
Mood lipstick: Green lipstick containing Red 27 reacts to your body chemistry to become perfect pink hue
KORA Organics: Miranda Kerr unveils skincare line featuring Noni fruit
Eurovision 2013: 26 countries competing in Malmö Grand Final
Rome: Thousands rally to oppose Italy’s austerity measures
Michelle Obama debuts her new longer hairdo
Ariel Castro’s three dogs found in better health than his victims
Real Housewives of Miami: Adriana de Moura marries Frederic Marq wearing a grey wedding dress
Beyoncé posts defensive note amid pregnancy rumors
US Airways flight makes belly landing at Newark Airport
Rihanna sues Topshop for $5 million over using pictures of her on T-shirts without her permission
Raha Moharrak: First Saudi woman and youngest Arab reaching Everest summit
DSM-5: Controversial updates to mental health manual to be published
North Korea fires short-range missiles from its east coast
Recipe: Super slimming mushroom inspired meal
Mushroom diet: M-Plan promises to help women lose weight still keeping their curves
Photo: George Michael airlifted to hospital following car crash on M1 motorway
US criticizes Russia for sending missiles to Syrian government
Connecticut head-on train crash injures at least 60 people near New York City
Christoph Waltz: Man points gun at him and threatens to blow up studio with hand grenade during Cannes TV interview
Mariah Carey’s American Idol finale performance branded worst lip-sync of all time
Dick Trickle 911 call before suicide
Ireland Baldwin displays tan lines in backless top
Beyoncé is pregnant with second child, multiple sources confirm
Madeleine McCann case: Potential suspects identified by UK detectives
Cannes Film Festival 2013: $1 million Chopard jewels stolen from Novotel hotel room