mars rover
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NASA
Perseverance Blasts Past the Top of Jezero Crater Rim
I have always loved the mountains. Growing up on the flat plains of Midwestern USA, every summer I looked forward to spending a few days on alpine trails while on vacation. Climbing upward from the trailhead, the views changed constantly. After climbing a short distance, the best views were often had by looking back down on where we had started.…
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NASA
Sols 4391-4392: Rounding the Bend
Earth planning date: Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024 For planning today, we have a beautiful view of the northern tip of Texoli, as seen in the image foreground. Unfortunately, the rocks that make the view so pretty also made it unsafe to unstow the arm for contact science. Instead we are doing a lot of imaging and a drive. Our primary…
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NASA
Sols 4352-4354: Halloween Fright Night on Mars
Earth planning date: Friday, Nov. 1, 2024 Yesterday evening (Thursday) was Halloween for many of us here on Earth. My neighborhood in eastern Canada was full of small (and not so small!) children, running around in the dark collecting sweets and candy but also getting scared by the ghostly decorations hung at each house. Little did we suspect that our…
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NASA
From Mars Rovers to Factory Assembly Lines
NASA-funded AI technology enabling autonomous rovers and drones now keeps an eye on conveyor belts European company apetito uses Neurala’s vision inspection software to ensure the quality of its prepared meals, such as green bean portions pictured here. The software evolved from code Neurala was developing more than a decade ago, with NASA funding, for a rover that could independently…
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NASA
Sols 4350-4351: A Whole Team Effort
Earth planning date: Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024 Just like you and me, the Curiosity rover has a few idiosyncratic tendencies — special ways that the rover behaves that we, the team on Earth, have come to understand to be harmless but still throw a curveball to our planning. Unfortunately, the set of activities that were planned to execute on Monday…
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NASA
NASA’s Perseverance Captures ‘Googly Eye’ During Solar Eclipse
The tiny, potato-shaped moon Phobos, one of two Martian moons, cast a silhouette as it passed in front of the Sun, creating an eye in Mars’ sky. From its perch on the western wall of Mars’ Jezero Crater, NASA’s Perseverance rover recently spied a “googly eye” peering down from space. The pupil in this celestial gaze is the Martian moon…
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NASA
Sols 4338-4340: Decisions, Decisions
Earth planning date: Friday, Oct. 18, 2024 On sol 4338, we have a science block planned as well as some arm activities. Our science activities include a ChemCam observation of “Donkey Lake.” This is a bedrock target with exposed laminations. In geology, lamination is a sequence of small-scale, embedded fine layers of sedimentary rock. Next, we will do an RMI…
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NASA
Just Keep Roving
Throughout the past week, Perseverance has continued marching up the Jezero crater rim. This steep ascent through the Martian regolith (soil) can prove to be slow driving for the rover, as the wheels can slip on the steepest areas. This is like trying to run up a hill of sand on a beach – with every step forward, you also…
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NASA
Christine Knudson Uses Earthly Experience to Study Martian Geology
Geologist Christine Knudson works with the Curiosity rover to explore Mars — from about 250 million miles away. Name: Christine KnudsonTitle: GeologistFormal Job Classification: Research AssistantOrganization: Planetary Environments Laboratory, Science Directorate (Code 699) Christine Knudson is a geologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. She began graduate school in August 2012, the same month that NASA’s Curiosity rover…
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NASA
Sols 4331-4333: Today’s Rover ABC – Aurora, Backwards Driving, and Chemistry, with a Side of Images
Earth planning date: Friday, Oct. 11, 2024 This blogger is in the United Kingdom, just north of London, where we yesterday had beautiful night skies with a red aurora that was even visible with the unaided eye, and looked stunning on photographs. That reminded me of the solar storm that made it all the way to Mars earlier this year.…
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