NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover tagged posts

New Insights into how Mars became Uninhabitable

Artist concept image of an early wet Mars.
This is an artist’s concept of an early Mars with liquid water (blue areas) on its surface. Ancient regions on Mars bear signs of abundant water – such as features resembling valleys and deltas, and minerals that only form in the presence of liquid water. Scientists think that billions of years ago, the atmosphere of Mars was much denser and warm enough to form rivers, lakes, and perhaps even oceans of water. As the planet cooled and lost its global magnetic field, the solar wind and solar storms eroded away to space a significant amount of the planet’s atmosphere, turning Mars into the cold, arid desert we see today.
NASA/MAVEN/The Lunar and Planetary Institute

NASA’s Curiosity rover, currently exploring Gale crater on Mars, is providing new details about how the ancient Martian clim...

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Curiosity’s Arm over ‘Marimba’ target on Mount Sharp

Image: Curiosity's arm over 'Marimba' target on mount sharp

Curiosity’s arm over ‘Marimba’ target on Mount sharp Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover began close-up investigation of a target called “Marimba,” on lower Mount Sharp, during the week preceding the fourth anniversary of the mission’s dramatic sky-crane landing. The Navigation Camera (Navcam) on Curiosity’s mast took this image on Aug. 2, 2016, during the 1,418th Martian day, or sol, since Curiosity landed inside Gale Crater on Aug. 6, 2012, Universal Time (Aug. 5, PDT).

In this scene, the rover has extended its arm over a patch of bedrock selected as the target for rover’s next drilling operation. The drilling collects rock powder for onboard laboratory analysis. The arm is positioned with the rover’s wire-bristle Dust Removal Tool above the target.

NASA’s Jet Propu...

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