New, High-Tech Lab Enables NAU Researchers, Students to Command Mars Curiosity RoverNorthern Arizona University
A recent paper may help explain why a portable chemistry lab onNASA’s Curiosity rover has continually sniffed out traces of the gas near the surface of Gale Crater. The most surprising revelation fromNASA’s CuriosityMarsRover— that methane is seeping from the surface of Gale Crater — has ...
In this handout image provided by NASA, one of the first images taken by NASA's Curiosity rover, which landed on Mars on the evening of Aug. 5, 2012. The MSL Rover named Curiosity is equipped with a nuclear-powered lab capable of vaporizing rocks and ingesting soil, measuring habitability...
NASA’sCuriosity roverhas tested a new technique for finding signs of alienlife on Mars. Although the rover found no such evidence, it suggests that future missions to other worlds could use the same method. In March 2017, the rover scooped material from the Bagnold Dunes, a band...
"Stephen Pakbaz, a mechanical engineer who worked on the actual Curiosity rover at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab [in Calif.], designed and submitted the rover project to LEGO CUUSOO in late 2011," Courtney explained. "His project reached 10,000 supporters within two weeks of the landing in Aug...
Curiosity drilled named “Glen Etive 1” (right) and “Glen Etive 2” (left) by the science team. The rover can analyze the chemical composition of rock samples by powderizing them with the drill, then dropping the samples into a portable lab in its belly called Sample Analysis at Mars ...
Curiosity drilled the piece of bedrock nicknamed "Aberlady" on April 6, and delivered the sample to its internal mineralogy lab on Wednesday. The rover's drill chewed easily through the rock, unlike some tougher targets it faced nearby on Mars' Vera Rubin Ridge. This was the mission's first...
Curiosity team member Christopher Edwards, a planetary geologist at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, also made note of the plan to wheel Curiosity back to study the dark-toned "stick-like" features. "This site was so interesting that we backtracked to get to where the rover was parke...
A rock near the Curiosity rover, dubbed "Coronation," was the first target for the mobile science lab's ChemCam laser. The laser beam vaporized a tiny area of the rock, creating a visible plasma that was telescopically studied by the instrument's three spectrometers to determine its compositio...
NASA's huge Curiosity rover is hurtling toward a planned late-night landing on Mars on Aug. 5 PDT (early Aug. 6 EDT), and the anticipation on the science team is high. The reasons are clear: At 1 ton, Curiosity is the largest rover ever aimed at Mars. It will land in a completely...