MARS - de missies (DEEL 5)

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Dust on Mars: Before and After (Spirit

Since landing on Mars a year ago, NASA's pair of six-wheeled geologists have been constantly exposed to martian winds and dust. Both rovers have been coated by some dust falling out of the atmosphere during that time, with estimates of the dust thickness ranging from 1 to 10 micrometers, or between 1/100th and 1/10th the width of a single human hair. Of the two, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit is definitely the more dust-laden. As a result, Spirit has gradually experienced a decline in power as the thin layer of dust has accumulated on the solar panels, blocking some of the sunlight that is converted to electricity. Spirit took the left image on martian day, or sol, 9 (Jan. 11, 2004), and took the right image nearly a year later, on sol 357 (Jan. 3, 2005), using the panoramic camera. The images show the camera's calibration target, which is used as a reference point for calibrating the colors on Mars. In the later image a semi-transparent layer of reddish martian dust coats the surfaces. The panoramic camera team's analysis indicates that the layer of dust on Spirit's calibration target is about 70 percent thicker than that on Opportunity's. Both images represent the panoramic camera team's best current attempt at generating true color views of what these scenes would look like if viewed by a human on Mars. They were each generated from a combination of six calibrated, left-eye Pancam images acquired through filters ranging from 430-nanometer to 750-nanometer wavelengths. The diameter of the outer ring of the calibration target is 8 centimeters (3.15 inches).

Image credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell
Browse Image (29.5 kB) | Large (191 kB)


Dust Accumulation on Mars

Since landing on Mars a year ago, NASA’s pair of six-wheeled geologists have been constantly exposed to martian winds and dust. As a result, the Spirit rover has gradually experienced a slight decline in power as a thin layer of dust has accumulated on the solar panels, blocking some of the sunlight that is converted to electricity. In this enlarged image of a postage-stamp-size (3-centimeter-square, 1.2-inch-square) portion of one of Spirit’s solar panels, a fine layer of martian dust coats electrical connections and metal surfaces. Individual silt grains or clumps of dust are visible where sediment has accumulated in crevices between solar cells and circuits. The upper right half of the image shows the edge of one of the rover’s solar cells. The lower left half shows electrical wires bonded with silicon adhesive to the underlying composite surface; the circular abrasions are the result of sanding by hand on Earth. The braided wire is connected to a thermocouple used to measure temperature based on electrical resistance. Spirit took this image with its microscopic imager on martian day, or sol, 350 (Dec. 26, 2004).

Image credit: JPL/NASA/Cornell/USGS
Browse Image (42.5 kB) | Large (559 kB)

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Dust on Mars: Before and After (Opportunity)

Since landing on Mars a year ago, NASA's pair of six-wheeled geologists have been constantly exposed to martian winds and dust. Both rovers have been coated by some dust falling out of the atmosphere during that time, with estimates of the dust thickness ranging from 1 to 10 micrometers, or between 1/100th and 1/10th the width of a single human hair. Of the two, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit is definitely the more dust-laden. The Opportunity rover, as shown here, appears to be collecting less dust, perhaps because of a cleaning by wind or even "scavenging" of dust by frost that forms on the rover some nights during the martian winter.
( See image of frost on Opportunity .)

Opportunity took the left image on martian day, or sol, 23 (Feb. 16, 2004), and took the right image about 11 months later, on sol 346 (Jan. 13, 2005), using the panoramic camera. Both images show the camera's calibration target, which is used as a reference point for calibrating the colors on Mars. In the later image, the surfaces have become only mildly dusty compared to shortly after landing. Both images represent the panoramic camera team's best current attempt at generating true-color views of what these scenes would look like if viewed by a human on Mars. They were each generated using a combination of six calibrated, left-eye Pancam images acquired through filters ranging from 430-nanometer to 750-nanometer wavelengths. The diameter of the outer ring of the calibration target is 8 centimeters (3.15 inches).

Image credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell
Browse Image (31.5 kB) | Large (194 kB)

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Looking Back Across the Plains

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity
looks through its navigation camera as it leaves
the home it has known for over 200 sols.
The rover spent 181 sols inside "Endurance Crater,"
furthering our knowledge of ancient water on Mars.
After that challenging work, it spent 25 sols investigating the heat shield
that protected it on its way through the martian atmosphere and the nearby
meteorite that was the first discovered on another planet.
Opportunity is saying 'so long' and heading south for a small crater referred to as "Argo."

This image was taken on the rover's 359th sol on Mars (January 26, 2005).

Image credit: NASA/JPL

Browse Image (41.6 kB) | Large (527 kB)

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Op woensdag 23 februari 2005 11:06 schreef Doffy het volgende:
Ongelofelijk! Nu is er zulk nieuws over Mars, en dan wordt dat in dit topic niet onmiddelijk gemeld!

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Op woensdag 23 februari 2005 14:48 schreef Alicey het volgende:
TT aangepast.

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Op woensdag 23 februari 2005 14:48 schreef Doffy het volgende:

[..]

Ah, ok. Ik vond de TT algemeen genoeg -en de ontdekking belangrijk genoeg!- om het te posten. Hoop dat je het niet erg vindt!

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Mars Rovers Break Driving Records, Examine Salty Soil
March 02, 2005



On three consecutive days, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity accomplished unprecedented feats of martian motion, covering more total ground in that period than either Opportunity or its twin, Spirit, did in their first 70 days on Mars.

Spirit, meanwhile, has uncovered soil that is more than half salt, adding to the evidence for Mars' wet past. The golf-cart-size robots successfully completed their three-month primary missions in April 2004 and are continuing extended mission operations.

Opportunity set a one-day distance record for martian driving, 177.5 meters (582 feet), on Feb. 19. That was the first day of a three-day plan transmitted to the rover as a combined set of weekend instructions. During the preceding week, engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory had sent Opportunity and Spirit an upgrade of the rovers' software, onboard intelligence the rovers use for carrying out day-to-day commands.

The new record exceeded a two-week old former best by 13 percent. As on all previous long drives by either rover, the traverse began with "blind" driving, in which the rover followed a route determined in advance by rover planners at JPL using stereo images. That portion lasted an hour and covered most of the day's distance. Then Opportunity switched to "autonomous" driving for two and a half hours, pausing every 2 meters (6.6 feet) to look ahead for obstacles as it chose its own route ahead.

The next day, Opportunity used its new software to start another drive navigating for itself. "This is the first time either rover has picked up on a second day with continued autonomous driving," said Dr. Mark Maimone, rover mobility software engineer at JPL. "It's good to sit back and let the rover do the driving for us."

Not only did Opportunity avoid obstacles for four hours of driving, it covered more ground than a football field. Opportunity has a favorable power situation, due to relatively clean solar panels and increasing minutes of daylight each day as spring approaches in Mars' southern hemisphere. This allows several hours of operations daily.

On the third day of the three-day plan, the robotic geologist continued navigating itself and drove even farther, 109 meters (357 feet), pushing the three-day total to 390 meters (nearly a quarter mile). In one long weekend, Opportunity covered a distance equivalent to more than half of the 600 meters that had been part of each rover's original mission-success criteria during their first three months on Mars.

Opportunity has now driven 3,014 meters (1.87 miles) since landing; Spirit even farther, 4,157 meters (2.58 miles). Opportunity is heading south toward a rugged landscape called "etched terrain," where it might find exposures of deeper layers of bedrock than it has seen so far. Spirit is climbing "Husband Hill," with a pause on a ridge overlooking a valley north of the summit to see whether any potential targets below warrant a side trip.

As Spirit struggled up the slope approaching the ridgeline, the rover's wheels churned up soil that grabbed scientists' attention. "This was an absolutely serendipitous discovery," said Dr. Steve Squyres of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., principal investigator for the rovers' science instruments. "We said, 'My gosh, that soil looks very bright. Before we go away, we should at least take a taste."

The bright patch of disturbed soil, dubbed "Paso Robles," has the highest salt concentration of any rock or soil ever examined on Mars. Combined information gained from inspecting it with Spirit's three spectrometers and panoramic camera suggests its main ingredient is an iron sulfate salt with water molecules bound into the mineral. The soil patch is also rich in phosphorus, but not otherwise like a high-phosphorus rock, called "Wishstone," that Spirit examined in December. "We're still trying to work out what this means, but clearly, with this much salt around, water had a hand here," Squyres said.

Meanwhile, scientists are re-calibrating data from both rovers' alpha particle X-ray spectrometers. These instruments are used to assess targets' elemental composition. The sensor heads for the two instruments were switched before launch. Therefore, data that Opportunity's spectrometer has collected have been analyzed using calibration files for Spirit's, and vice-versa. Fortunately, because the sensor heads are nearly identical, the effect on the elemental abundances determined by the instruments was very small. The scientists have taken this opportunity to go back and review the results for the mission so far and re-compute using correct calibration files. "The effect in all cases was less than the uncertainties in results, so none of our science conclusions are affected," Squyres said.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, has managed NASA's Mars Exploration Rover project since it began in 2000. Images and additional information about the rovers and their discoveries are available on the Internet at http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/solarsystem/mer_main.html and http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov .


###
Guy Webster (818) 354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California

Dolores Beasley (202) 358-1753
NASA Headquarters, Washington

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A. B.

Churned-Up Rocky Debris and Dust

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit has been analyzing sulfur-rich rocks and surface materials in the "Columbia Hills" in Gusev Crater on Mars. This image shows rocky debris and dust, which planetary scientists call "regolith" or "soil," that has been churned up by the rover wheels. This 40-centimeter-wide (16-inch-wide) patch of churned-up dirt, nicknamed "Paso Robles," contains brighter patches measured to be high in sulfur by Spirit's alpha particle X-ray Spectrometer. Spirit's panoramic camera took this (A) false-color (B) true-color image on martian day, or sol, 400 (Feb. 16, 2005), using filters at wavelengths of 750, 530, and 430 nanometers. Darker red hues in the image correspond to greater concentrations of oxidized soil and dust. Whiter and bluer hues correspond to sulfur-rich deposits that are not as heavily coated with soils or are not as highly oxidized.


A. B.

Sulfur-Rich Rocks and Dirt

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit has been analyzing sulfur-rich rocks and surface materials in the "Columbia Hills" in Gusev Crater on Mars. This image of a very soft, nodular, layered rock nicknamed "Peace" in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. shows a 4.5-centimeter-wide (1.8-inch-wide) hole Spirit ground into the surface with the rover's rock abrasion tool. The high sulfur content of the rock measured by Spirit's alpha particle X-ray spectrometer and its softness measured by the abrasion tool are probably evidence of past alteration by water. Spirit's panoramic camera took this (A) false-color (B) true-color image on martian day, or sol, 381 (Jan. 27, 2005), using Pancam filters at wavelengths of 750, 530, and 430 nanometers. Darker red hues in the image correspond to greater concentrations of oxidized soil and dust. Bluer hues correspond to sulfur-rich rock excavated or exposed by the abrasion tool and not as heavily coated with soils or not as highly oxidized.

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Mars rover gets new lease on life
_{Dust devil cleans Spirit's solar arrays}


Klik foto


Mars scientists and engineers are elated about a dust-busting blast that has struck the Spirit rover at its Gusev crater exploration site.

Turns out that a martian whirlwind – dubbed a dust devil – likely zoomed over the robot high up in the Columbia Hills. That fleeting flyby effectively cleaned Spirit’s solar arrays, giving the robot a new lease on life.

Engineers report that the rover’s power reading quickly shot up to almost as high as when the rover landed on Mars over a year ago.

Gusev: Alive with dust devils

Rover scientists suspected something was up at the Gusev site when Spirit’s wheel tracks were disappearing. Onboard cameras could look down and see the tracks vanishing. Rover team members assumed that the site was experiencing a heavy dust loading in the atmosphere.

Indeed, the rover’s energy quickly dropped. Seeing the robot’s decreasing power level, controllers started to consider cutting back on rover Mars work.

"Gusev was alive with dust devils," explained one scientist familiar with rover operations.

But suddenly Spirit’s available energy rocketed to a high level. The plus-up in power, team members believe, was due to a whirlwind passing right over the robot, removing the dust that had collected on its solar cells.

Martian squeegee men

The impact of the devilish dust-off was significant.

"The noon solar output from the panels went from a 40 percent loss to just 7 percent," said rover science team member, Larry Crumpler, a research curator in volcanology and space sciences at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science in Albuquerque.

Images of the panels taken later showed "beautiful dark panels," Crumpler explained. "And all the wires and edges on the [rover] deck have little dust tails. I think it might have been the Martian squeegee men. Either that or one heck of a buffeting by a dust devil," he said.


Spirit has been busy wrapping up a spectacular panorama from the vantage point of "Larry’s Lookout."

Miracle cleaning event

Earlier this month, lead investigator for the Mars Exploration Rover mission, Steve Squyres of Cornell University, noted that Spirit’s depleted power was reducing the number of hours per day available to snap photos.

Squyres couldn’t gauge the chance of what he called a "miracle cleaning event" – akin to what occurred months ago on Opportunity, its sister robot on the other side of Mars. "If it happens, I’ll take it!"

"We have to assume the worst…that the solar panels are going to stay dirty and just get dirtier," Squyres told SPACE.com at the time.

As to what caused Opportunity’s solar panels at Meridiani Planum to become cleaned is a puzzle, Squyres said. "Wind has to be involved at some level you figure. Frost might have helped. A frost build-up on arrays could coagulate the dust…but the fact is that we don’t understand it very well. But I’ll take it."

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Next Stop: 'Methuselah'



NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit is approaching an outcrop dubbed "Methuselah," which scientists intend for the rover to examine in detail for several days before resuming an uphill climb. This false-color view is assembled from frames taken by Spirit's panoramic camera on the rover's 454th martian day, or sol (April 13, 2005). It shows a region in the "Columbia Hills" slightly downhill from the rover. The view features two interesting outcrops in the middle distance and "Clark Hill" in the left background. The outcrop on the right, with rover tracks leading from it, is "Larry's Lookout." On the left is the Methuselah outcrop, with apparent layering. This view combines images taken through the camera's 750-nanometer, 530-nanometer and 430-nanometer filters.


Gusev Dust Devil Movie, Sol 456 (Plain and Isolated)

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Op zaterdag 23 april 2005 20:54 schreef BabeWatcher het volgende:
Die Dust Devil lijkt mij niet meer dan een doodgewone windhoos zoals wij die hier ook wel eens boven zandvlaktes hebben.

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Op woensdag 13 april 2005 19:18 schreef -CRASH- het volgende:
Lijkt wel een kleine meteoriet inslag...

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Alweer een bevestiging.....

Opportunity Discovers Tiny Craters on Mars

27 April

On Earth, people tend to think of craters as giant holes in the ground like Meteor Crater in Arizona, ancient features too big to miss that mark the site of a catastrophic collision with an asteroid or comet.

But craters can also be small objects, like the two discovered recently by the Opportunity rover on the plains of Meridiani on Mars. Both are less than half an inch deep and clearly visible in images taken by the rover's navigation cameras.

"These are the smallest craters yet observed by either rover," said Matt Golombek, a veteran Mars researcher at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and principal scientist on the Mars Exploration Rover mission. "I think the smallest crater we saw in Gusev Crater (where Opportunity's twin, the Spirit rover, is exploring the other side of Mars) was 40 centimeters (15.7 inches) wide and that was in a hollow that had already been filled by sand and sediment."

The largest of the two craters discovered by Opportunity is only half as big, measuring 20 centimeters (7.9 inches) in diameter and 1 centimeter (0.4 inches) deep. The smallest of the two is 10 centimeters (3.9 inches) wide and less than 1 centimeter deep. Opportunity took pictures of the two tiny craters with its left and right navigation cameras, creating a stereo image that allowed scientists to measure their distance and size.

On Earth, small craters are not commonly recognized because they're quickly filled with dirt, pine needles, or other debris carried by water and wind. On Mars, craters are primarily filled by wind-blown sediment, though in the past they may also have been filled by lava, melting ice, or flowing water.

"Given that these two craters haven't been covered by sand even though they are surrounded by sand ripples on a flat plain lends support to the idea that they're fairly recent," said Golombek. "Of course, recent might mean any time from yesterday to 100 million years ago."

Both are impact craters formed either by an object from space that was large enough to make it through the martian atmosphere without burning up or by rock fragments ejected from a larger crater that formed when something crashed into the martian surface.

"Come to think of it," added Golombek, "there were also no small, fresh craters seen by the previous three martian landers, which include Pathfinder and the two Viking landers. These are the smallest craters yet seen on Mars." Golombek was project scientist for the Pathfinder mission.

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Op donderdag 19 mei 2005 09:43 schreef Frutsel het volgende:
Cassini finds tiny moon tucked in Saturn's rings
-knip-

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Op zaterdag 21 mei 2005 22:09 schreef Darklight het volgende:
Wat doen ze dan ook op Mars
Laten ze weer eens wat bemande missies naar de Maan doen ofzo

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Op maandag 23 mei 2005 14:30 schreef Doffy het volgende:
Is Opportunity alweer los, inmiddels?

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Slow Progress in Dune

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity makes slow but steady progress through soft dune material in this movie clip of frames taken by the rover's front hazard identification camera over a period of several days. The sequence starts on Opportunity's 460th martian day, or sol (May 10, 2005) and ends 11 days later. In eight drives during that period, Opportunity advanced a total of 26 centimeters (10 inches) while spinning its wheels enough to have driven 46 meters (151 feet) if there were no slippage. The motion appears to speed up near the end of the clip, but that is an artifact of individual frames being taken less frequently.

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Info van Space.com

BRON: Mars rover freed from sand dune
_{Sunday, June 5, 2005 Posted: 10:35 AM EDT (1435 GMT)}


^{The Mars rover Opportunity leaves wheel tracks
after escaping from a sand trap, Saturday.}

PASADENA, California (AP) -- The Mars rover Opportunity resumed rolling freely across the Martian surface Saturday after scientists freed it from a sand dune where it had been mired for nearly five weeks, NASA officials said.

Engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the mission, cheered when images beamed back to Earth showed the rover's wheels were free.

"We've got a working rover on Mars that cost $400 million to build and ... keep working," project manager Jim Erickson said. "I'd like to wear it out rather than lose it."

A photograph taken by Opportunity and posted on the laboratory's Web site showed the long tracks of its wheels crossing a featureless dune.

Opportunity's wheels started slipping April 26 during a planned 295-foot trip. While trying to drive over a foot-high sand dune, the robotic explorer stopped moving, its wheels hub-deep in soft soil.

Engineers spent weeks with an Opportunity mock-up figuring out what commands to give the robot to free it, but the maneuvers took time. The rover inched forward less than a foot in a month, losing most of its traction every time it tried to roll.

"It's kind of like we were swimming through it," Erickson said.

But on Saturday morning, data showed that Opportunity was free at last and had moved several feet across the dune.

Erickson said engineers want to be sure the rover will not encounter any more patches that could trap it again. It will be Monday or Tuesday night before a test drive is ordered, he said.

Opportunity and its twin rover, Spirit, have been exploring opposite sides of Mars since landing in January 2004. Both rovers have long outlasted their primary, three-month missions.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

En de lanceringsdata voor de volgende Marsmissie is ookal bekend
August 2007

BRON: NASA: Phoenix Mars launch in 2007

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Opportunity

Rind-Like Features at a Meridiani Outcrop

After months spent roving across a sea of rippled sands, Opportunity reached an outcrop in August 2005 and began investigating exposures of sedimentary rocks, intriguing rind-like features that appear to cap the rocks, and cobbles that dot the martian surface locally. Opportunity spent several sols analyzing a feature called "Lemon Rind," a thin surface layer covering portions of outcrop rocks poking through the sand north of "Erebus Crater." In images from the panoramic camera, Lemon Rind appears slightly different in color than surrounding rocks. It also appears to be slightly more resistant to wind erosion than the outcrop's interior. To obtain information on how this surface layer (or weathering rind) may have formed and how it compares to previously analyzed outcrops, Opportunity is using the microscopic imager, alpha particle X-ray spectrometer and Moessbauer spectrometer to analyze surfaces that have been brushed and ground with the rock abrasion tool. Scientists will compare these measurements with similar measurements made on the underlying rock material.



This is a false-color composite generated by draping enhanced red-green-blue color from the panoramic camera's 753-nanometer, 535-nanometer and 482-nanometer filters over a high-fidelity violet, 432-nanometer-filter image. The image was acquired on martian day, or sol 552 (Aug. 13, 2005) around 11:55 a.m. local true solar time. In this representation, bright sulfur-bearing sedimentary rocks appear light tan to brown, depending on their degree of dust contamination, and small dark "blueberries" and other much less dusty rock fragments appear as different shades of blue. Draping the color derived from the blue to near-infrared filters over the violet filter image results in a false color view with the sharpest color and morphology contrasts.

Image credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell


SPIRIT

Dust Devils at Gusev <<< Klik voor de tekst die bij elk filmpje hoort.

sol 525


sol 532


sol 537


sol 543


sol 559


sol 568

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A Whale of a Panorama
Klikbaar


More than 1.5 years into their exploration of Mars, both of NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers continue to send a cornucopia of images to Earth. The results are so spectacular that Deputy Project Manager John Callas recently described them as "an embarrassment of riches." Spirit produced this image mosaic, nicknamed the "Whale Panorama," two-thirds of the way to the summit of "Husband Hill," where the rover investigated martian rocks. On the right side of the panorama is a tilted layer of rocks dubbed "Larry's Outcrop," one of several tilted outcrops that scientists examined in April, 2005. They used spatial information to create geologic maps showing the compass orientation and degree of tilting of rock formations in the vicinity. Such information is key to geologic fieldwork because it helps establish if rock layers have been warped since they formed. In this case, scientists have also been studying the mineral and chemical differences, which show that some rocks have been more highly altered than others.

In the foreground, in the middle of the image mosaic, Spirit is shown with the scientific instruments at the end of its robotic arm positioned on a rock target known as "Ahab." The rover was busy collecting elemental chemistry and mineralogy data on the rock at the same time that it was taking 50 individual snapshots with its five panoramic camera filters to create this stunning view of the martian scenery. The twin tracks of the rover's all-terrain wheels are clearly visible on the left.

This mosaic of images spans about 220 degrees from left to right and is an approximate true-color rendering of the Mars terrain acquired through the panoramic camera's 750-, 530-, and 430-nanometer filters. Spirit collected these images from its 497th martian day, or sol, through its 500th sol (May 27 through May 30, 2005).

Image credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell

Looking Up from the Deep

Klikbaar


Not long after conducting extensive investigations of tilted martian rock layers along its path, NASA's Spirit rover prepared to resume the trek to the top of the "Columbia Hills" in June. This panorama, nicknamed "Sunset Ridge," shows the terrain that lay ahead of the rover on Spirit's 519th martian day, or sol (June 19, 2005). On the left is the summit of "Husband Hill," Spirit's objective at that time.

This mosaic of images is an approximate true-color rendering of snapshots taken by the rover's panoramic camera using 750-, 530-, and 430-nanometer filters. Spirit took these images at approximately 3 p.m. local true solar time in Gusev Crater on Mars. The rover then continued to climb throughout July, making numerous scientific investigations of martian rocks along the way.

Image credit: NASA/JPL/USGS/Cornell

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'Everest' Panorama; 20-20 Vision

Image:

Browse Image
Medium Image (180KB)
Large (41.7MB)

Animations:
Animation 1 (7.2 MB) Animation 2 (43.8MB)

If a human with perfect vision donned a spacesuit and stepped onto the martian surface, the view would be as clear as this sweeping panorama taken by NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit. That's because the rover's panoramic camera has the equivalent of 20-20 vision. Earthlings can take a virtual tour of the scenery by zooming in on their computer screens many times to get a closer look at, say, a rock outcrop or a sand drift, without losing any detail. This level of clarity is unequaled in the history of Mars exploration.

It took Spirit three days, sols 620 to 622 (Oct. 1 to Oct. 3, 2005), to acquire all the images combined into this mosaic, called the "Everest Panorama," looking outward in every direction from the true summit of "Husband Hill." During that period, the sky changed in color and brightness due to atmospheric dust variations, as shown in contrasting sections of this mosaic. Haze occasionally obscured the view of the hills on the distant rim of Gusev Crater 80 kilometers (50 miles) away. As dust devils swooped across the horizon in the upper right portion of the panorama, the robotic explorer changed the filters on the camera from red to green to blue, making the dust devils appear red, green, and blue. In reality, the dust devils are similar in color to the reddish-brown soils of Mars. No attempt was made to "smooth" the sky in this mosaic, as has been done in other panoramic-camera mosaics to simulate the view one would get by taking in the landscape all at once. The result is a sweeping vista that allows viewers to observe weather changes on Mars.

The summit of Husband Hill is a broad plateau of rock outcrops and windblown drifts about 100 meters (300 feet) higher than the surrounding plains of Gusev Crater. In the distance, near the center of the mosaic, is the "South Basin," the destination for the downhill travel Spirit began after exploring the summit region.

This panorama spans 360 degrees and consists of images obtained during 81 individual pointings of the panoramic camera. Four filters were used at each pointing. Images through three of the filters, for wavelengths of 750 nanometers, 530 nanometers and 430 nanometers, were combined for this approximately true-color rendering.


Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell

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Op dinsdag 22 november 2005 10:18 schreef NorthernStar het volgende:

[..]

Ongelooflijk he? Ik kan me de nachten nog wel herinneren dat we hier zaten, kijken of het goed ging, eerste plaatje enzo. En nu rijden ze nog!

Techniek is toch een stuk opgeschoten vergeleken met bijv. de Vikinglanders.

Iemand een idee of er verder nog landers of robots op het program staan?

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Op dinsdag 22 november 2005 10:18 schreef NorthernStar het volgende:


Techniek is toch een stuk opgeschoten vergeleken met bijv. de Vikinglanders.

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A far-off record

Despite their accomplishments, Spirit and Opportunity have a long way to go to set an endurance record on Mars. Both mission times pale in comparison with NASA’s twin Viking missions.

Viking 1 and Viking 2, both of which set down on Mars in the summer of 1976, spent several years recording Mars from their stationary landing spots.

Viking 2’s mission ended in April of 1980 about 1,281 Martian days after landing when its batteries failed.
Viking 1, however, continued to function until Nov. 13, 1982, more than four Earth years after arriving on Mars.

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Op vrijdag 2 december 2005 15:57 schreef star_gazer het volgende:

[..]

Hebben ze dat niet al 10x gedaan?

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" By analysis of the two echoes, the scientists were able to draw
the likely scenario of a nearly pure, cold water-ice layer
thicker than 1 km, overlying a deeper layer of basaltic regolith. "

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Op zaterdag 3 december 2005 00:27 schreef Yosomite het volgende:

[..]

Om water te krijgen, is het dan noodzakelijk om een zuurstofatmosfeer te hebben of gehad te hebben?
Of zijn er andere processen mogelijk om de aanwezigheid van water op een hemellichaam te kunnen verklaren?

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Mars Express Providing Evidence For Large Aquifers On Early Mars
<sub>Paris (ESA) Dec 01, 2005


A HRSC 3D perspective view of Candor Chasma (in false colours) characterised by the infrared images of OMEGA. It shows bright and brown deposits (red markers) that are rich in the mineral kieserite, a hydrated magnesium sulphate. Credits:ESA/OMEGA/HRSC.</sub>

The findings from the OMEGA instrument on board ESA's Mars Express are strongly indicating that liquid water must have been present, in a stable form, in Mars' early history, having implications for the planets climatic history, and questions of life in the past.
These conclusions were drawn thanks to data on Martian surface minerals obtained by OMEGA (Observatoire pour la Mineralogy, l'Eau, les Glaces et l'Activite), the visible and infrared mapping spectrometer on board ESA's Mars Express.

From previous observations, Mars must have undergone water-driven processes, which left their signature in surface structures such as channel systems and signs of extensive aqueous erosion. However, such observations do not necessarily imply the stable presence of liquid water on the surface over extended periods of time during the Martian history.

The data collected by OMEGA unambiguously reveal the presence of specific surface minerals which imply the long-term presence of large amounts of liquid water on the planet.

These 'hydrated' minerals, so called because they contain water in their crystalline structure, provide a clear 'mineralogical' record of water-related processes on Mars.

During 18 months of observations OMEGA has mapped almost the entire surface of the planet, generally at a resolution between one and five kilometres, with some areas at sub-kilometre resolution.

The instrument detected the presence of two different classes of hydrated minerals, 'phyllosilicates' and 'hydrated sulphates', over isolated but large areas on the surface.

Both minerals are the result of a chemical alteration of rocks. However, their formation processes are very different and point to periods of different environmental conditions in the history of the planet.

Phyllosilicates, so-called because of their characteristic structure in thin layers ('phyllo' = thin layer), are the alteration products of igneous minerals (minerals of magmatic origin) sustaining a long-term contact with water. An example of phyllosilicate is clay.

Phyllosilicates were detected by OMEGA mainly in the Arabia Terra, Terra Meridiani, Syrtis Major, Nili Fossae and Mawrth Vallis regions, in the form of dark deposits or eroded outcrops.

Hydrated sulphates, the second major class of hydrated minerals detected by OMEGA, are also minerals of aqueous origin. Unlike phyllosilicates, which form by an alteration of igneous rocks, hydrated sulphates are formed as deposits from salted water; most sulphates need an acid water environment to form. They were spotted in layered deposits in Valles Marineris, extended exposed deposits in Terra Meridiani, and within dark dunes in the northern polar cap.

When did the chemical alteration of the surface that led to the formation of hydrated minerals occur? At what point of Mars's history was water standing in large quantities on the surface? OMEGA's scientists combined their data with those from other instruments and suggest a likely scenario of what may have happened.

"The clay-rich, phyllosilicate deposits we have detected were formed by alteration of surface materials in the very earliest times of Mars," says Jean-Pierre Bibring, OMEGA Principal Investigator.

"The altered material must have been buried by subsequent lava flows we observe around the spotted areas. Then, the material would have been exposed by erosion in specific locations or excavated from an altered crust by meteoritic impacts," Bibring adds.

Analysis of the surrounding geological context, combined with the existing crater counting techniques to calculate the relative age of surface features on Mars, places the formation of phyllosilicates in the early Noachian era, during the intense cratering period. The Noachian era, lasting from the planet's birth to about 3.8 thousand million years ago, is the first and most ancient of the three geological eras on Mars.

"An early active hydrological system must have been present on Mars to account for the large amount of clays, or phyllosilicates in general, that OMEGA has observed," says Bibring.

The long-term contact with liquid water that led to the phyllosilicate formation could have existed and be stable at the surface of Mars, if the climate was warm enough. Alternatively, the whole formation process could have occurred through the action of water in a warm, thin crust.

OMEGA data also show that the sulphate deposits are distinct from, and have been formed after, the phyllosilicate ones. To form, sulphates do not need a particularly long-term presence of liquid water, but water must be there and it must be acidic.

The detection and mapping of these two different kinds of hydrated minerals point to two major climatic episodes in the history of Mars: an early - Noachian - moist environment in which phyllosilicates formed, followed by a more acid environment in which the sulphates formed. These two episodes were separated by a Mars global climatic change.

"If we look at today's evidence, the era in which Mars could have been habitable and sustained life would be the early Noachian, traced by the phyllosilicates, rather than the sulphates. The clay minerals we have mapped could still retain traces of a possible biochemical development on Mars," Bibring concludes.

_{These results appear on line in Nature, on 30 November 2005, in an article called: 'Phyllosilicate on Mars and implications for early Martian climate', by: F. Poulet, J-P. Bibring, Y. Langevin, B. Gondet and C. Gomez (Institut d'Astrophyisique Spatiale, Univ. of Paris Sud and CNRS, Orsay, France); J. F. Mustard and A. Gendrin (Geological Sciences, Brown Univ., Rhode Island, USA); N. Mangold (Interactions & Dynamique des Environment de Surface, Orsay, France); R.E. Arvidson (Earth & Planetary Sciences, Washington Univ., St. Louis, USA); and the OMEGA team.}

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Mars has a big watery past -- and present, too
_{PARIS (AFP) Nov 30, 2005}

The European spacecraft Mars Express has added powerful evidence to the belief that water once covered Mars and large reserves of precious ice lurk close to the surface today, studies presented on Wednesday said.
Surrounding Mars' north pole are underground "layered deposits" that are believed to be fine strata of ice, according to research presented at the headquarters here of the European Space Agency (ESA).

The find is "nearly pure, cold water ice," with only two percent contamination by dust.

Beneath these deposits are large amounts of sand that is probably "cemented" with water ice.

The data was collected in three swings over the Red Planet, on June 26, July 6 and July 9, by the ESA orbiter after it had deployed a mighty ground-scanning radar called MARSIS, that delved to a kilometer (3,250 feet) below the planet's surface.

Meanwhile, scientists using a near-infrared spectrometer called OMEGA found wide-ranging clays called phyllosilicates -- a telltale for water, for they are formed when volcanic basalt rocks are immersed in water for a long period.

They conclude that oceans covered Mars at the end of the so-called Noachian era, which concluded between 3.5 and 3.8 billion years ago. If so, it means that Mars was watery in its childhood: the planet, like Earth, was formed around 4.6 billion years ago.

In recent years, data sent back by orbiting spacecraft and two US rovers has suggested that the planet was once awash in water and that the precious substance could still exist in the form of ice.

Finding the water could determine whether the planet once sustained life, and maybe even now harbours it, perhaps in microbial form. And a reservoir of water would be vital for a planned manned mission to the planet.

But the evidence until now has been sketchy, based mainly on images of the Martian surface, taken from land and at the surface, which show a planet dismayingly dry and dusty.

Mars' subsurface is "the missing third dimension," said Giovanni Picardi, a University of Rome scientist who is the MARSIS chief investigator.

Mars Express, Europe's first solo mission to explore another planet, arrived at Mars on December 25, 2003.

It dropped a small robot lander, Beagle 2, that disappeared without trace, and then experienced a 13-month delay in deploying the long arms of the MARSIS radar, one of the most important instruments in its scientific package.

MARSIS is designed to send powerful low-frequency radio waves which are capable of penetrating the ground to a depth of several kilometers (1.5 miles).

The reflected energy is then picked up by the orbiter and transcribed to give an image of Mars's sub-surface structure.

In addition to finding evidence of the polar ice, MARSIS also spotted a remarkable structure buried just under the surface in the northern lowlands of Chryse Planitia, in Mars' northern equatorial region.

Measuring 250 kilometers (150 miles) across and roughly ring-shaped, the phenomenon could be an impact from an asteroid or other space rock.

Where Mars' water went is one of the big challenges facing the unmanned space explorers on Mars.

One theory is that around 3.5 billion years ago, the planet somehow lost its core-driven magnetic field, a shield that protected it against the fierce buffeting of particles from the Sun.

Without this, the planet's thick carbon dioxide atmosphere was progressively shredded by the solar wind and its oceans slowly evaporated, leaving only residual water in the form of ice.

The OMEGA study appears in Thursday's issue of Nature, the British weekly science journal, while the MARSIS study is published online by the US journal Science.

_{All rights reserved. © 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.}

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Op maandag 5 december 2005 09:31 schreef Yosomite het volgende:

[..]

D'r wordt hier ("Noachiaans", wel een leuk gevonden woord) gesuggereerd dat het opp van Mars in een ver verleden geheel onder water heeft gestaan.
Daar ben ik nog niet zo van overtuigd. Ik denk dat de situatie die gesuggereerd wordt, wat voorbarig is.

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Meteor Search by Spirit, Sol 643 (Unlabeled)



The panoramic cameras on NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers are about as sensitive as the human eye at night. The cameras can see the same bright stars that we can see from Earth, and the same patterns of constellations dot the night sky. Scientists on the rover team have been taking images of some of these bright stars as part of several different projects. One project is designed to try to capture "shooting stars," or meteors, in the Martian night sky. "Meteoroids" are small pieces of comets and asteroids that travel through space and eventually run into a planet. On Earth, we can sometimes see meteoroids become brilliant, long "meteors" streaking across the night sky as they burn up from the friction in our atmosphere. Some of these meteors survive their fiery flight and land on the surface (or in the ocean) where, if found, they are called "meteorites." The same thing happens in the Martian atmosphere, and Spirit even accidentally discovered a meteor while attempting to obtain images of Earth in the pre-dawn sky back in March, 2004 (see http://marsrovers.jpl.nas(...)irit/20040311a.html, and Selsis et al. (2005) Nature, vol 435, p. 581). On Earth, some meteors come in "storms" or "showers" at predictable times of the year, like the famous Perseid meteor shower in August or the Leonid meteor shower in November. These "storms" happen when Earth passes through the same parts of space where comets sometimes pass. The meteors we see at these times are from leftover debris that was shed off of these comets.

The same kind of thing is predicted for Mars, as well. Inspired by calculations about Martian meteor storms by meteor scientists from the University of Western Ontario in Canada and the Centre de Recherche en Astrophysique de Lyon in France, and also aided by other meteor research colleagues from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, scientists on the rover team planned some observations to try to detect predicted meteor storms in October and November, 2005. The views shown here are a composite of nine 60-second exposures taken with the panoramic camera on Spirit during night hours of sol 643 (Oct. 25, 2005), during a week when Mars was predicted to pass through a meteor stream associated with comet P/2001R1 LONEOS. Many stars can be seen in the images, appearing as curved "dash-dot" streaks. The star trails are curved because Mars is rotating while the camera takes the images. The dash-dot pattern is an artifact of taking an image for 60 seconds, then pausing about 10 seconds while the image is processed and stored by the rover's computer, then taking another image for 60 seconds, etc., for a total of about 10 minutes worth of "staring" at the night sky. Many stars from the southern constellations Octans and Pavonis can be seen in the images. The brightest ones in this view would be easily visible to the naked eye, but the faintest ones are slightly dimmer than the human eye can detect.

In addition to the star trails, there are several smaller linear streaks, dots and splotches that are the trails left by cosmic rays hitting the camera detectors. Cosmic rays are high-energy particles that are created in the Sun andsin other stars throughout our galaxy and travel through space in all directions. Some of them strike Earth or other planets, and ones that strike a digital camera detector can leave little tracks or splotches like those seen in these images. Because they come from all directions, some strike the detector face-on, and others strike at glancing angles. Some even skip across the detector like flat rocks skipped across a pond. These are very common phenomena to astronomers used to working with sensitive digital cameras like those in the Mars rovers, the Hubble Space Telescope, or other space probes, and while they can be a nuisance when taking pictures, they generally do not cause any lasting damage to the cameras. One streak in the image, crossing at an angle very different from the direction of the stars' "motion," might be a meteor trail or could be the mark of another cosmic ray.

While hunting for meteors on Mars is fun, ultimately the team wants to use the images and results for scientific purposes. These include helping to validate the models and predictions for interplanetary meteor storms, providing information on the rate of impacts of small meteoroids with Mars for comparison with rates for the Earth and Moon, assessing the rate and intensity of cosmic ray impact events in the Martian environment, and looking at whether some bright stars are being dimmed occasionally by water ice or dust clouds occurring at night during different Martian seasons.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/Texas A&M/SSI

quote:

Opportunity's 'Olympia' Panorama


This view from the panoramic camera on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity shows an outcrop called "Olympia" along the northwestern margin of "Erebus" crater. The view spans about 120 degrees from side to side, generally looking southward. The outcrop exposes a broad expanse of sulfate-rich sedimentary rocks. The rocks were formed predominantly from windblown sediments, but some also formed in environmental conditions from damp to under shallow surface water. After taking the images that were combined into this view, Opportunity drove along along a path between sand dunes to the upper left side of the image, where a cliff in the background can be seen. This is cliff is known as the "Mogollon Rim." Researchers expect it to expose more than 1 meter (3 feet) of new strata, These strata may represent the highest level observed yet by Opportunity. The image is an approximately true-color rendering generated using the panoramic camera's 750-nanometer, 530-nanometer and 430-nanometer filters.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell


Opportunity Traverse Map, Sol 656



This image shows the route that NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has taken from its landing site inside "Eagle Crater" to its position on its 656th Martian day, or sol, (Nov. 27, 2005) at the edge of "Erebus Crater." The base image is a portion of a mosaic (previously released as PIA07506) combining images from the Mars Observer Camera on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter, the Thermal Emission Imaging System on NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter, and Opportunity's own Descent Image Motion Estimation System. The scale bar at lower right is 800 meters (one-half mile). As of sol 656, Opportunity had driven a total of 6,502 meters (4.04 miles).

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/OSU

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Op woensdag 7 december 2005 21:38 schreef Doffy het volgende:
Iets meer dan 80 posts, meer dan 3200 views! Way to go Crash!

Krijg ik nu de ijskast

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UK Returns To Mars In A Big Way Through Aurora Program
_{Swindon UK (SPX) Dec 07, 2005}


^{The UK is to invest 108.1 million (approximately £74.4 million [USD 127.4 million]) into Aurora, making the UK second largest contributor.}

UK scientists are returning to Mars with the news that the UK is to be a major player in the first phase of the European Space Agency's robotic space exploration programme Aurora, which will set the agenda for Europe's robotic exploration of space for the next 10 years.
The announcement was made at the conclusion of ESA's Ministerial Meeting held in Berlin (5-6 December).

The UK is to invest 108.1 million (approximately £74.4 million [USD 127.4 million]) into Aurora, making the UK second largest contributor. The majority of this will go into ExoMars (101 million - approximately £69.5 million [USD 119 million]) ESA's Mars Exploration mission which is due to launch in 2011, arriving at Mars in 2013. A further 7.1 million (approximately £4.9 million [USD 8.4 million]) is invested into the Core Programme to prepare for a future Mars Sample Return mission.

Speaking at the Ministerial Lord Sainsbury, Minister for Science and Innovation said, "Aurora will build on last week's exciting Mars Express results which provide the first concrete evidence of significant amounts of water under the surface of Mars. As a major contributor, the UK will have a leading role in this programme which is set to improve our understanding of Mars and the Solar System."

ExoMars will involve exploring Mars in three dimensions investigating the existence of life on the planet and study Mars's suitability for an eventual human mission. The mission will investigate the surface of Mars with a rover and will also look at what is below the surface with a seismometer, ground penetrating radar and a drill. The technology and instrumentation prepared for ExoMars will pave the way for a future network of science stations and for a sample return mission.

PPARC's Chief Executive and Chair of the UK Space Board, Prof Keith Mason, said, "This commitment by the UK to this major new European programme is highly significant and as well as paving the way for great scientific return it represents an investment in core technologies to be developed not only for ExoMars but for further robotic missions."

"ExoMars will compliment the international efforts to explore Mars and the rest of ESA's successful space programme to explore our solar system. Mars Express, Cassini-Huygens and Smart-1 continue to deliver amazing results with further revelations set to return through missions such as Venus Express and Rosetta", he continued.

Dr Andrew Coates at UCL's Mullard Space Science Laboratory) said "This is just the news we've been waiting for. The exploration of Mars, along with other solar system bodies, plays a key part in understanding mankind's place in the Universe. Mars probably offers our best chance to answer a fascinating question -- 'are we alone?'

"The ExoMars rover, Europe's first mobile laboratory on another planet, will explore whether past, or even present life exists on our cosmic neighbour. Now, the UK can really build on the heritage of Beagle 2 and play a lead role in this exciting mission. We look forward to seeing our pictures, and perhaps even video, from the surface of an exciting world".

Prof Monica Grady from the Open University said "Joining ESA's Aurora programme is a wonderful opportunity for the UK to be part of an exciting and challenging programme of Martian exploration. It builds on the recent successes that we have seen from other planetary missions such as Mars Express and Cassini-Huygens, and we hope that it will enthuse and excite people, both specialists and non-specialists, in the same way that Beagle 2 did.

"Over the next few years, we will see a new generation of young scientists, engineers and technologists contributing to this mission, providing inspiration to school students and their teachers. It is our good fortune to be working in this field at this exciting time."

The UK also committed 374.3 million (approximately £257.6 million [USD 441. 1 million]) to ESA's science programme representing approximately 18% of the total ESA science programme budget of 2,080 million [USD 2,451 million].

Prof Mason added, "By re-affirming our commitment to invest in ESA's science programme the UK recognises that this is a pillar upon which the rest of the Agency's activities are built. This will help to ensure a cost effective programme which delivers a high scientific return."

On hearing the news, Prof John Zarnecki from the Open University, said: "This is wonderful news -- we can now look forward to British scientific instruments and technology being on the surface of Mars by 2013. This is an outstanding opportunity for UK scientists and industry to be a part of this European venture to search for life on Mars and to understand better the environment of our close neighbour."

Dr Mark Sims from the University of Leicester and Chair of PPARC's Aurora Advisory Board added, "The Aurora programme is a fantastic opportunity to exploit the great interest in planetary science and exploration throughout Europe and particularly in the UK. This programme will build upon the significant scientific and industrial expertise built up in missions such as Cassini-Huygens, Mars Express, and Beagle 2.

Planetary exploration has the added potential for instrumentation spin-offs into many fields and commercial sectors, and of exciting the general public. In particular planetary space science can inspire our young students to continue their education in science, engineering and technology and ultimately encourage them to enter into careers in science and technology. This can only build and strengthen the UK's industrial and economic base."

In the UK, PPARC is responsible for the UK space science budget (ESA core space science programme and Aurora investment).




_{Germany Joins The Aurora Exploration Programme}

quote:

Mars Probe Beagle 2 Wreckage Found, Scientist Says

<sub>By Associated Press

posted: 20 December 2005
11:51 am ET</sub>


LONDON (AP)—The British scientist behind the failed Beagle 2 probe said Tuesday he believes he has located the craft's wreckage on the surface of Mars.



Nothing has been heard from Beagle 2—named for the ship that took naturalist Charles Darwin on his 19th-century voyage of discovery—since it separated from its mother ship Dec. 19, 2003. It had been due to land on Mars six days later.


Colin Pillinger, the lead scientist on the mission, said the latest images from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft suggested Beagle plunged into a crater near its planned landing site.

While the 143-pound craft is too small to be seen in the pictures, Pillinger said the crater showed signs of a heavy impact.

“There is a lot of disturbance in this crater, particularly a big patch on the north crater wall, which we think is the primary impact site,” Pillinger told the British Broadcasting Corp.

“There are then other features around the crater consistent with the airbags bouncing around and finally falling down into the middle. Then, when you cut the lace, the airbags fall apart giving three very symmetrical triangles.”

Scientists attempted to contact Beagle for months after it disappeared before admitting defeat.

An internal report in 2004 gave no definitive reason for the loss of the craft but suggested Beagle may have hit the planet's surface too hard because Mars' atmosphere was not as dense as expected due to dust storms.

The loss of the probe, which cost the government more than $40 million and the private sector another $80 million, prompted questions in Britain about Europe's ability to participate in the race to Mars.

Pillinger is seeking funds and sponsorship for a fresh mission to Mars, possibly as early as 2007.

quote:

Op woensdag 21 december 2005 08:14 schreef Frutsel het volgende:
hoever zou die afliggen van de twee andere wagentjes op Mars...
rijden die er nog of zijn die inmiddels ook al kaduuk

quote:

Op woensdag 4 januari 2006 11:25 schreef pomtiedom het volgende:

Zie ik daar in de verte nog een klein heuveltje opdoemen anderaan de voet van die berg?
Anyway's die manier waarop de stenen soms verspreid liggen (zoals hier onderaan de foto ze schijnbaar een ovale circle vormen is gewoon toeval neem ik aan?

quote:

Mooie foto's overigens, mijn complimenten.

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Op woensdag 4 januari 2006 23:59 schreef Kanjer het volgende:
Is dat wiel rechts beneden nu zo beschadigt?

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Op zondag 2 april 2006 15:06 schreef Marvin-THE-MARTiAN het volgende:

Ik kan mij echter in die situatie ook voorstellen dat ze dan de stekker eruit trekken...

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Op dinsdag 2 mei 2006 21:55 schreef zakjapannertje het volgende:
met de Mars Express een interessante vondst gedaan:
[..]

http://www.hbvl.be/nieuws(...)A-8A3A-FDC5EDF6C41F}

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Op dinsdag 13 juni 2006 12:53 schreef Freek99 het volgende:
Artikel over de veelbelovende missie van de Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

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Op maandag 9 oktober 2006 02:13 schreef star_gazer het volgende:
Als ik dit soort info allemaal lees word ik echt helemaal wild van het feit dat ik geologie studeer Ik wil me graag gaan specialiseren in planetaire geologie en hopelijk dus planeetonderzoek gaan doen

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Op woensdag 6 december 2006 22:13 schreef Bodolicious het volgende:
Hebben ze al onderzocht wat dit was voor een object?
http://marsrovers.jpl.nas(...)EFFAMOAP2443R1M1.JPG

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Op donderdag 7 december 2006 00:42 schreef Bodolicious het volgende:

[..]

Ja .. maar vind de verhouding nogal vreemd, het lijkt net of dat object achter die duin enorm groot is.

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Op donderdag 7 december 2006 01:11 schreef Parafernalia het volgende:
cool, maar wel behoorlijk false color allemaal

zijn er ook echte kleurenfoto's?

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Op donderdag 24 mei 2007 03:14 schreef star_gazer het volgende:
Hmmmm.. Niet-kristallijne silicium-dioxide. Dat riekt naar (overblijfselen van) een zeer snel gestold lava (silicaglas, obsidiaan) als je het mij vraagt. Volgens mij hoeft het echt geen water te zijn. Het merkwaardige is dat het op Aarde in de natuur niet veelvuldig voorkomt, maar we er toch wilde conclusies aan verbinden.

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Dust Delays Mars Crater Entry

A giant dust storm brewing for more than a week on Mars has become worse and is affecting surface operations of the Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity. Because the rovers depend on solar energy for survival, and the dust is partially blocking the sun, the storm is being watched closely by the rover scientists and engineers. Opportunity's entry into Victoria Crater is delayed for at least several days.

The storm, the most severe storm yet to hit the rovers, is expected to continue for at least another week. Opportunity is perched near "Duck Bay" as it readies to descend into Victoria Crater, but operations were scaled back on Saturday, June 30, to conserve power.

"The storm is affecting both rovers and reducing the power levels on Opportunity," said John Callas, Mars Exploration Rover project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "We are keeping an eye on this as we go forward, but our entry into Victoria Crater will be delayed until no sooner than July 13."

"We have some data that show the atmospheric opacity is decreasing, so the storm might have peaked and we may have passed the worst of this. The situation could improve quickly from here, but we will have to wait and see," said Callas.

Weather reports from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Color Imager camera are helping track the storm and plan rover operations.

Pictures from the orbiter's Mars Color Imager show the storm is regional in extent, and includes several local areas of especially high dust activity. The storm has been moving eastward and toward mid-latitudes, and is now also causing an increase in atmospheric dust at Spirit's location, on the opposite side of the planet at Gusev Crater. Dust levels at Gusev remain much lower than at the Opportunity site, however.

Both rovers take daily measurements estimating the amount of dust in the atmosphere. The less dust the better, because it means more sunlight reaches the rover's solar panels, which power the vehicles. In the last week, Opportunity has broken its dust record, with the opacity level rising from 1.0 to 3.3. Solar array energy on Opportunity dropped from 765 watt-hours to 402 watt-hours over the same period of time.

"While this only represents enough dust to coat the planet to about the thickness of a human hair, it is enough to decrease the brightness of the noon sun by 96 percent compared to a completely clear atmosphere," said Steve Squyres, principal investigator, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. "Of course, the solar arrays also receive light that is scattered from the dust, so the decrease in power is not nearly that great."

"We have not seen dust measurements this high on either rover before. If the dust levels were to increase further and stay elevated for several days, there is a risk to how well Opportunity could continue to work in this darkened environment," said Callas.

credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/University of Arizona/Ohio State University

quote:

Evidence of A Wet Martian Past

A shallow trench made by Spirit's dragging right front wheel uncovered some of the best evidence Spirit has found for ancient water-rich environments in Gusev Crater -- bright patches of almost pure, fine-grained silica (SiO2). On ancient Earth, warm, evaporating coastal waters deposited fine silica in shallow sediments. In Yellowstone National Park, hot, mineral-laden waters deposit fine-grained silica around geysers and hot springs. The discovery of silica-rich deposits on Mars adds compelling new evidence of ancient environments that might have been favorable for life.

Spirit acquired this false-color view of the remarkable, light-colored soil patch with the panoramic camera on the rover's 1,198th sol, or Martian day of exploration (May 17, 2007), more than three years after landing on Mars.

credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell

quote:

For nearly a month, a series of severe Martian summer dust storms has affected the rover Opportunity and, to a lesser extent, its companion, Spirit. The dust in the Martian atmosphere over Opportunity has blocked 99 percent of direct sunlight to the rover, leaving only the limited diffuse sky light to power it. Scientists fear the storms might continue for several days, if not weeks.

"We're rooting for our rovers to survive these storms, but they were never designed for conditions this intense," said Alan Stern, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

If the sunlight is further cut back for an extended period, the rovers will not be able to generate enough power to keep themselves warm and operate at all, even in a near-dormant state. The rovers use electric heaters to keep some of their vital core electronics from becoming too cold.

Before the dust storms began blocking sunlight last month, Opportunity's solar panels had been producing about 700 watt hours of electricity per day, enough to light a 100-watt bulb for seven hours. When dust in the air reduced the panels' daily output to less than 400 watt hours, the rover team suspended driving and most observations, including use of the robotic arm, cameras and spectrometers to study the site where Opportunity is located.


On Tuesday, July 17, the output from Opportunity's solar panels dropped to 148 watt hours, the lowest point for either rover. On Wednesday, Opportunity's solar-panel output dropped even lower, to 128 watt hours.

NASA engineers are taking proactive measures to protect the rovers, especially Opportunity, which is experiencing the brunt of the dust storm. The rovers are showing robust survival characteristics. Spirit, in a location where the storm is currently less severe, has been instructed to conserve battery power by limiting its activities.

"We are taking more aggressive action with both rovers than we needed before," said John Callas, project manager for the twin rovers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

By Opportunity's 1,236th Martian day, which ended Tuesday, driving and all science observations had already been suspended. The rover still used more energy than its solar panels could generate on that day, drawing down its battery. "The only thing left to cut were some of the communication sessions," Callas said.

To minimize further the amount of energy Opportunity is using, mission controllers sent commands on Wednesday, July 18, instructing the rover to refrain from communicating with Earth on Thursday and Friday. This is the first time either of the rovers has been told to skip communications for a day or more in order to conserve energy. Engineers calculate that skipping communications sessions should lower daily energy use to less than 130 watt hours.

A possible outcome of this storm is that one or both rovers could be damaged permanently or even disabled. Engineers will assess the capability of each rover after the storm clears.

NASA will provide mission updates as events warrant. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the rover project for the Science Mission Directorate.


###
Guy Webster/Gay Yee Hill 818-354-6278/5011
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California

Dwayne Brown/Tabatha Thompson 202-358-1726/3895
NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
NEWS RELEASE: 2007-080

http://marsrovers.jpl.nas(...)eases/20070720a.html

quote:

MARS ROVER UPDATE:
NASA has heard from Mars rover Opportunity, and the report is promising.
On July 23rd, Opportunity's power levels had improved slightly as a result
of several days of energy-conserving silence and low activity.
The rover is struggling to survive a severe dust storm which has darkened the sky,
reducing sunlight to the rover's solar panels by as much as 99 percent:

Meanwhile on the other side of Mars, weekend communications from Spirit indicated
that the sky had cleared slightly, improving power levels for Spirit as well.
"The outlook for both Opportunity and Spirit depends on the weather, which makes it unpredictable,"
says JPL's John Callas, project manager for both rovers.
"If the weather holds where it is now or gets better, the rovers will be OK. If it gets worse,
the situation becomes more complex."

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DUST STORM UPDATE:
A global dust storm on Mars which began in late June refuses to die down. Clouds of dust are now visible in backyard telescopes and the planet is beginning to resemble a orange billiard ball as all of its underlying surface markings are hidden from view. NASA has commanded Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity to remain in a state of low activity while solar power is in critically short supply. "We are still waiting out the storms, and we don't know how long they will last or how bad they will get," says John Callas of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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GOOD NEWS ON MARS:
After six weeks of hunkering down during raging dust storms that limited solar power, Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity have resumed driving. The storms, albeit not over, are abating and sunlight is beginning to stream through the clouds. Just one problem: dust is settling on the rover's solar panels, which tends to block the intensifying sunlight. On balance, though, the situation is improving and for now the rovers are back in business: more.

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^{The High Resolution Imaging Experiment (HiRISE) camera operated at The University of Arizona released this new view of the dark pit on Arsia Mons (PSP_004847_1745) today. This view is not the entire HiRISE image, but a close-up of the pit on the Arsia Mons volcano. The new image confirms that the dark pit really is a vertical shaft that cuts through lava flow on the flank of the volcano. Such pits form on similar volcanoes in Hawaii and are called "pit craters." (Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona)}

The High Resolution Imaging Experiment (HiRISE) has confirmed that a dark pit seen on Mars in an earlier HiRISE image really is a vertical shaft that cuts through lava flow on the flank of the Arsia Mons volcano. Such pits form on similar volcanoes in Hawaii and are called "pit craters."
The HiRISE camera, orbiting the red planet on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, is the most powerful camera ever to orbit another planet. It is operated at The University of Arizona in Tucson. HiRISE Principal Investigator Alfred McEwen of the UA's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and his team released the new image of the dark pit on Arsia Mons and several other stunning images today on the HiRISE Web site, http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu. New HiRISE images are released on the site every Wednesday.

The UA-based HiRISE team also released another 930 images to the Planetary Data System (PDS), the U.S. space agency's mission data archive, today. These images, taken between May and July 2007, include a view of what at first glance looks deceptively like a mesa set in Swiss cheese terrain. But it's a case of "trompe l'oeil," an eye trick -- the feature is a crater.

The "Swiss cheese" terrain is carbon dioxide ice that "sublimates," or thaws from a solid directly into gas, during the summer, which it currently is at this south polar region of Mars. Carbon dioxide sublimating on steep slopes changes the shape of pits and mesas from year to year. The large depression in this image might be an impact crater, McEwen said, although it's hard to be sure because there's no raised rim or ejecta. Impact craters on the ice cap are modified as the ice-rich terrain "relaxes" over time and as they are resurfaced by the annual deposition and sublimation of frost and ice.

Another image shows a very recent "rayed" dark impact crater among older pocks in the lighter, dust-covered surface. An extremely recent impact, perhaps only a few years or decades ago, created the dark spot with radial and concentric patterns in this HiRISE image. The small central crater is only about 18 meters wide (60 feet), but it formed a dark spot 700 meters wide (two-fifths mile) with rays of secondary craters reaching as far as 3.7 kilometers (more than two miles) from the central crater, McEwen said. Secondary craters are rocks ejected from the central crater. "This region of Mars is covered by dust, and the impact event must have removed or disturbed the dust to create the dark markings," McEwen said.

All HiRISE images released to the PDS can be viewed from the HiRISE site. There also is a direct link to the full directory listing at http://hirise-pds.lpl.arizona.edu/PDS.

Today's release adds another 1.8 terabytes to the PDS. The project turned over its first 1,200 HiRISE images to PDS last May. The PDS now holds a total 3.5 terabytes of HiRISE data, one of the largest single datasets returned from a spacecraft and archived in NASA's space mission library.

Internet users can explore the images with the user-friendly "IAS Viewer" software that can be downloaded from the HiRISE Web site. IAS-Viewer technology allows users to quickly explore part of an enormous HiRISE image because the software transmits only as much data as needed to render any selected part of the image on a computer screen. The tool delivers a high-resolution view of the selected part of the image regardless of slow or limited Internet connections.

The HiRISE camera takes images of 3.5-mile wide (6 kilometer) swaths as the orbiter flies at about 7,800 mph between 155 and 196 miles (250 to 316 kilometers) above Mars' surface. HiRISE science imaging began in November 2006 and will continue at least through November 2008.

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Phoenix Mars Lander: Radar And Other Gear Pass Checkouts
^{by Staff Writers
Pasadena CA (SPX) Sep 06, 2007}

Two crucial tools for a successful landing of America's latest mission to Mars, the radar and UHF radio on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander, have passed in-flight checkouts. The ultra-high-frequency radio won't be turned on again until landing day, May 25, 2008, when it will relay communications from Phoenix to orbiters already in service around Mars.
Since launch on Aug. 4, 2007, and until the day it reaches Mars, Phoenix is communicating directly with Earth via even higher frequency X-band radio, mounted on a part of the spacecraft that will be jettisoned shortly before Phoenix hits the top of the Martian atmosphere.

The radar will monitor the spacecraft's fast-shrinking distance to the ground during the final three minutes before touchdown on Mars, triggering descent-engine firings and other necessary events during the most challenging moments of the mission.

The Phoenix flight operations team tested the radar and UHF radio on Aug. 24. Four days earlier, the team ran the first in-flight checkout of a Phoenix science instrument. This test focused on the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer, which will check for water, carbon-containing molecules and other chemicals of interest in the icy soil of Mars. The checkout verified the health of an ion pump, which will be used during the transit to Mars to remove most water vapor carried from Earth with the instrument. Four additional science instruments are scheduled for checkouts before the spacecraft's next trajectory correction maneuver, planned for Oct. 16.

As of Sept. 1, Phoenix will have covered 81 million kilometers (50 million miles) of its 679-million kilometer (422-million-mile) flight to Mars. It is traveling at 34 kilometers per second (76,000 mph) in relation to the sun. Meanwhile, careful preparations continue for the white-knuckle minutes before landing and the potential scientific discoveries at the landing site.

"Everything is going as planned. No surprises, but this is one of those times when boring is good," said Barry Goldstein, Phoenix project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Phoenix will fly to a site farther north than any previous Mars landing. The solar-powered lander will robotically dig to underground ice and will run laboratory tests assessing whether the site could have ever been hospitable to microbial life. The instruments will also look for clues about the history of the water in the ice. They will monitor arctic weather as northern Mars' summer progresses toward fall, until solar energy fades and the mission ends.

The Phoenix mission is led by Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson, with project management at JPL and development partnership at Lockheed Martin, Denver. International contributions are provided by the Canadian Space Agency; the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland; the universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus, Denmark; the Max Planck Institute, Germany; and the Finnish Meteorological Institute. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

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LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Two months after surviving a giant dust storm, one of NASA's robotic rovers on Mars began a risky drive Tuesday into a crater blasted open by a meteor eons ago.

Scientists want the rover Opportunity to travel 40 feet down toward a bright band of rocks in the Victoria Crater. They believe the rocks represent the ancient surface of Mars and that studying them could shed clues on the planet's early climate.

On Tuesday morning, engineers sent commands to Opportunity to begin its journey, and the robot signaled a confirmation. It will be several hours before scientists know how well the drive is going, and the trek itself will take several days.

Opportunity's first task will be to "toe dip'' into the crater, a move that involves rolling its six wheels below the rim and immediately back out to gauge its footing.

Over the next few days, engineers will check Opportunity's instruments and command it to scale down the crater.

"We expect to have good driving,'' said John Callas, the rover project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.

The long-awaited descent into the crater -- measuring a half-mile across and about 200 to 230 feet deep -- had been on hold since July when a series of sun-blotting dust storms raged in the southern hemisphere. At the height of the storm, Opportunity and its twin, Spirit, went into sleep mode to conserve energy. Spirit is exploring another area far from Opportunity.

Opportunity reached the lip of the crater last month and scouted for possible entry points. The route scientists eventually chose calls for a straight drive down at a 15-degree incline toward the exposed layer of bright rocks.

During a July teleconference, NASA managers admitted the latest mission was risky, but decided to proceed anyway because of the science that could be learned.

The aging but hardy rovers have been exploring Mars for 3 1/2 years -- far outlasting their primary, three-month mission.

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New images obtained by a sharp-eyed Martian satellite reveal that some Red Planet features once thought to have been carved by flowing water were in fact created by other processes.

The images were taken during the first 100 days of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) mission and are detailed in a special section of the Sept. 21 issue of the journal Science.

While the results don't confirm or deny the existence of liquid water on Mars' surface, they are no less fascinating, say the scientists involved. For instance, one team found no evidence that flowing water caused bright deposits on the planet. Instead, the scientists proposed dry landslides caused the deposits.

"All findings are good findings," said one team leader Alfred McEwen, a planetary geologist at the University of Arizona.

Philip Christensen of Arizona State University said the MRO results reiterate that "Mars has been fairly dry for the recent past and we need to be careful and not overestimate how much water may have been present, or may have shaped the surface" in ancient times.

"I have been a 'dry Mars guy' for a long time," Christensen said. "These findings are basically saying you look at very high resolution and you do see some evidence for water, there's no disputing that. But you don't see an overwhelming amount of evidence for water."

Lava explosions
The bus-sized MRO orbiting spacecraft, launched in 2005, is equipped with six instruments, including the High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera, or HiRISE, which provides 10 times the resolution of any past Mars imagers. While the MRO images are in some cases inconclusive on the question of Martian water, they are painting a picture of the Martian surface for scientists in unprecedented detail.

In some cases, the images refute past speculation that some of the features were created by flowing water.

A team led by Windy Jaeger of the U.S. Geological Survey in Arizona analyzed HiRISE images of the Athabasca Valles, a young outflow channel system speculated to have been carved out by past catastrophic floods.

"That entire surface is coated with a thin layer of solidified lava, very hard rock that's almost preserved the channel system," Jaeger said, adding: "Catastrophic water floods probably did carve the channel system, but lava flowed through it more recently."

The findings suggest that rather than flooding, steam explosions left behind trails of cone-shaped features found on the floor of Athabasca Valles.

"When water and lava interact it causes a steam explosion," Jaeger told SPACE.com. "And so the lava-covered ground had ground ice in it. And as that water was heated it exploded in steam explosions through the lava."

Dry landslides
McEwen led another research team, which studied a variety of landforms also thought to be associated with past water on Mars. They examined images of gully deposits that had been detected last year by the Mars Global Surveyor. The gully deposits were not present in 1999 images but appeared by 2004. The before-and-after images raised hopes that modern flows of liquid water created the deposits. However, observations from MRO suggest a dry origin, McEwen said.

Both chemical analyses and images of one of the fresh deposits showed no signs of frost or ice and no evidence for even hydrated minerals, all of which could have given the deposits a "bright" appearance.

"We think dry landsliding could've created the bright deposits," McEwen said.

The slopes above this deposit and five other locations are steep enough for sand or loose, dry dust to flow down the gullies, the scientists say. Material uphill could be the source.

In science, discrediting a theory can be just as important as supporting one. "Some science reporters are acting as if we should be disappointed these new bright deposits weren't deposited by water," McEwen said. "We're excited by any advance in understanding Mars no matter what it is."

No ocean
The researchers also ruled out a hypothesis for an ancient ocean on Mars.

The Vastitas Borealis Formation, which covers low-lying northern plains of Mars, was thought to be the result of fine-grained deposits left by an ancient ocean. The new HiRISE images reveal the area, which appeared as flat and featureless in prior missions, is peppered with large boulders.

The mixed-bag of findings intrigue scientists involved.

While Mars is dry now, there remains a lot of water locked up as ice at the poles and beneath the surface away from the poles.

"Ninety-nine percent of Mars is pretty dry and pretty average and not all that exciting," Christensen said. "But the one percent is extremely interesting. So imagine stumbling across an oasis or hot spring out in the middle of a desert. It's a barren desert but gosh that little oasis sure looks attractive."

As an astrobiologist, Christensen says Mars holds plenty of hideouts for life, "I think there are still plenty of places to look for life on Mars."

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Op woensdag 26 september 2007 14:00 schreef Frutsel het volgende:
Is het niet gewoon een krater

zou wel tof zijn... diepe grotten

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_{MarsDayly.com}
NASA aims to put man on Mars by 2037


NASA aims to put a man on Mars by 2037, the administrator of the US space agency indicated here Monday.
This year marks the half-century of the space age ushered in by the October 1957 launch of the Sputnik-1 by the then Soviet Union, NASA administrator Michael Griffin noted.

In 2057, the centenary of the space era, "we should be celebrating 20 years of man on Mars," Griffin told an international astronautics congress in this southern Indian city where he outlined NASA's future goals.

The international space station being built in orbit and targeted for completion by 2010 would provide a "toehold in space" from where humanity can travel first to the moon and then to Mars, Griffin said.

"We are looking at the moon and Mars to build a civilisation for tomorrow and after that," Griffin added in his remarks at a conference session attended by heads of the world's space agencies.

President George W. Bush in 2004 announced an ambitious plan for the US to return to the moon by 2020 and use it as a stepping stone for manned missions to Mars and beyond.

NASA's Phoenix spacecraft is scheduled to land on the northern plains of Mars next year to determine if the Red Planet could support life.

The agency's Mars rovers Opportunity and Spirit resumed their three-year-old mission this month after surviving giant dust storms that nearly destroyed the twin robots.

The rovers were placed in hibernation mode in July to save power because the dust storms were covering their solar panels, impeding their ability to absorb energy from the sun.

And on September 15, 10 gerbils took off from the Russian-run Baikonur space centre in Kazakhstan for a 12-day voyage to test the possible effects of a human mission to Mars.

Missions to the moon and Mars, amid a renewal of global interest in space exploration, are at the top of the agenda for the 2,000 space scientists, astronauts, satellite manufacturers and launchers who gathered in Hyderabad.

NASA is due to start sending a series of robotic missions to the moon starting next year to prepare for future spaceflights and do research on the effects of extended space travel on human beings.