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Sols 4166-4167: A Garden Full of Rocks
Earth planning date: Wednesday April 24, 2024 Here on Earth (in Toronto, specifically), it’s a very typical April which can’t quite make up its mind about whether or not it wants to be spring. On Mars (in Gale Crater), we’re…
NASA’s Planet-Hunting Satellite Temporarily on Pause
During a routine activity April 23, NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) entered safe mode, temporarily suspending science operations. The satellite scans the sky searching for planets beyond our solar system. The team is working to restore the satellite to…
NASA’s Chandra Releases Doubleheader of Blockbuster Hits
New movies of two of the most famous objects in the sky — the Crab Nebula and Cassiopeia A — are being released from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. Each includes X-ray data collected by Chandra over about two decades. They…
Sols 4164-4165: What’s Around the Ridge-bend?
Earth planning date: Monday, April 22, 2024 Curiosity succeeded on a ~14 m drive along a bend in upper Gediz Vallis ridge (uGVR) to park next to “Pinnacle Ridge,” an outcrop of uGVR to the north. Benefitting from a…
NASA’s CloudSat Ends Mission Peering Into the Heart of Clouds
Over the course of nearly two decades, its powerful radar provided never-before-seen details of clouds and helped advance global weather and climate predictions. CloudSat, a NASA mission that peered into hurricanes, tallied global snowfall rates, and achieved other weather and…
Explore the Universe with the First E-Book from NASA’s Fermi
To commemorate a milestone anniversary for NASA’s Fermi spacecraft, the mission team has published an e-book called “Our High-Energy Universe: 15 Years with the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope.” Readers can download the e-book in PDF and EPUB formats. The e-book…
Hubble Celebrates 34th Anniversary with a Look at the Little Dumbbell Nebula
In celebration of the 34th anniversary of the launch of NASA’s legendary Hubble Space Telescope on April 24, astronomers took a snapshot of the Little Dumbbell Nebula (also known as Messier 76, M76, or NGC 650/651) located 3,400 light-years away in the…
Pushing the Limits of Sub-Kilowatt Electric Propulsion Technology to Enable Planetary Exploration and Commercial Mission Concepts
NASA has developed an advanced propulsion technology to facilitate future planetary exploration missions using small spacecraft. Not only will this technology enable new types of planetary science missions, one of NASA’s commercial partners is already preparing to use it for…
Sols 4161-4163: Double Contact Science
Earth planning date: Friday, April 19, 2024 Curiosity has a three-sol weekend plan coming up as it makes progress along the edge of upper Gediz Vallis ridge. We have observations planned to investigate multiple bedrock targets with interesting rippled textures,…
Why is Methane Seeping on Mars? NASA Scientists Have New Ideas
The most surprising revelation from NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover — that methane is seeping from the surface of Gale Crater — has scientists scratching their heads. Living creatures produce most of the methane on Earth. But scientists haven’t found convincing…
