Category Astronomy/Space

Curiosity took the photos for this panorama shortly after arriving at the lee face of Namib dune, on sol 1197 (December 19, 2015). For the first time since landing on Mars, the panorama taken by the rover’s left Mastcam includes the entire deck of the rover, permitting a rover self-portrait. Since Mastcam is on the mast, the self-portrait does not include the rover mast, but, unlike previous self-portraits taken with the MAHLI camera, it does contain the arm. The deck was included to look for sand grains that may have been carried onto the deck of the rover from the sand dune. For a 360-degree virtual reality version of this panorama, visit Andrew Bodrov’s 360cities page. Credit: NASA / JPL / MSSS / Andrew Bodrov Read more at: http://phys...

Figure 1: A simplified schematic of the how the LEISA instrument works. As the scene (in this case, Pluto) moves by along the scan direction, the imager records many frames of video in sequence, imaging each part of Pluto though each segment of the linear filter and building up a spectral map of the entire object. Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI/Alex Parker

This solar flare occurred at the peak of the solar cycle in October 2014 with no observed eruptions. PPPL researchers say this is a promising candidate for studying the effect of guide magnetic fields. Credit: NASA

Examples of Martian Gullies. Until recently they were thought to have been sculpted by flowing liquid water, but they may result from defrosting dry ice processes at the end of winter. On the right, gullies on dunes in Russel Crater (54.3°S-12.9°E) are partially covered by CO2 ice. On the left, sinous gullies in a Crater in Newton Basin (41°S-202°E) Credit: Image courtesy of CNRS