MARS - BIO FUEL DAILY

Mouse mummies point to mammalian life in Mars-like Andes

Oct 24, 2023 (SPX)

"The most surprising thing about our discovery is that mammals could be living on the summits of volcanoes in such an inhospitable, Mars-like environment," says...

Sampling Sequoia: Sols 3984-3986

Oct 23, 2023 (JPL)

Will the mineralogy of our newest drill sample be the same, or might there be changes as we climb up through the layers of sulfate-bearing rocks exposed on Moun...

Year 2075: Martian rovers saved from cyber attack

Oct 20, 2023 (SPX)

The 'Pwn The Rover' hacking contest was held on 17 October at ESA's mission control centre in Darmstadt, Germany, in collaboration with Fraunhofer SIT and ATHEN...

Welcome to the Drillhole Family, 'Sequoia': Sols 3982-3983: Welcome

Oct 20, 2023 (JPL)

Today in planning, I undertook the role of 'Keeper Of the Plan' for the geology and mineralogy science theme group, and the role is abbreviated to GKOP. It was ...

Rocket Lab Moves Into System Integration Phase for NASA's Mars Mission

Oct 19, 2023 (SPX)

Spearheaded by Dr. Rob Lillis at the University of California, Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory, the ESCAPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics E...

Searching for concentrated biosignatures in an ancient, Martian mud lake

Oct 19, 2023 (SPX)

"Our research focuses on a sedimentary unit within Hydraotes Chaos, which we interpret to be the remnants of a mud lake formed by discharges from gas-charged mu...

International team reveals source of largest ever Mars quake

Oct 18, 2023 (SPX)

The quake, which had a magnitude of 4.7 and caused vibrations to reverberate through the planet for at least six hours, was recorded by NASA's InSight lander on...

Taking a Rain Check: Sols 3977-3979

Oct 17, 2023 (JPL)

Wednesday's pre-drilling tests on target 'Sequoia' (shown in the image above) mostly went smoothly, but the preload test failed. That meant we needed to make a ...

Cliffhangers go by the name of 'Stand By' in Mission Ops: Sols 3980-3981

Oct 17, 2023 (JPL)

Remember that Groken drill hole? I don't blame you, if not, because the blog about it is just three days short of three years old! You can find it here if you w...

Eclipse on Earth, Exploration on Mars

Oct 16, 2023 (JPL)

Mars has two moons, Phobos and Deimos, which are both significantly smaller than Earth's Moon. When directly overhead, Phobos appears about one-third the size o...

Preparing To Drill: Sols 3975-3976

Oct 13, 2023 (JPL)

On Mars, Curiosity is prepping to take a sample of its own, albeit one that won't be returned to Earth (that honour belongs to Curiosity's twin Perseverance ove...

Fly across Mars's 'labyrinth of night' with Mars Express

Oct 12, 2023 (ESA)

This video visualises a flight over the eastern part of Noctis Labyrinthus as seen by Mars Express's High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC). It presents a perspec...

Bumping to a Better Position: Sols 3973-3974

Oct 10, 2023 (JPL)

The goal today at the start of planning was to do contact science with APXS and MAHLI and assess targets for drilling and subsequently investigation with CheMin...

Light rocks on deck, gray rocks in the hole: Sols 3966-3697

Oct 04, 2023 (JPL)

It may relate to differences in the composition or chemistry of the rocks; alteration that occurred after they formed; how the rocks within each band are erodin...

NASA's Perseverance captures dust-filled Martian whirlwind

Oct 01, 2023 (JPL)

The lower portion of a Martian dust devil was captured moving along the western rim of Mars' Jezero Crater by NASA's Perseverance rover on Aug. 30, 2023, the 89...

Double DRT for a Soliday: Sols 3964-3965:

Sep 29, 2023 (JPL)

With that image open, I just want to point out our remote and contact science targets we analyzed from Wednesday: The sol 3962 ChemCam LIBS target, Pants Pass, ...

Dust removal delayed: Sols 3962-3963

Sep 27, 2023 (JPL)

We learned at the start of planning today that Mastcam did not acquire the standard post-drive color imaging of the new workspace due to an issue with the place...

Big Fan of Rock Bands: Sols 3960-3961

Sep 26, 2023 (JPL)

Too rough, in fact, to employ the Dust Removal Tool, much to the dismay of the team who had been hoping to include a brushed bedrock target since we haven't bee...

Curiosity the Cautious Rover: Sols 3957-3959

Sep 26, 2023 (JPL)

The terrain here is tough, lots of boulders to clamber over. Sometimes the rover detects that the boulders are a problem and cuts the drive short, to await furt...

Sombrero Rock: A Case of Case-Hardening?

Sep 26, 2023 (JPL)

"Sombrero rock" (officially named Middle Mountain) was found along our journey to the carbonate-bearing Margin Unit covered in a previous blog. One hypothesis f...