Latest news with #MarsReconnaissanceOrbiter
Yahoo
16 hours ago
- Science
- Yahoo
NASA's Curiosity rover takes a closer look at 'spiderwebs' on Mars
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. For over a decade, NASA's Curiosity rover has been capturing images of Mars as scientists continue to study the planet's structures and surface. Curiosity's goal as it travels across Mars is to look for unique signs of life, including signs of possible ancient life on the planet. Curiosity captured this 360-degree image after traveling to an area full of low ridges called boxwork patterns. These patterns look like spiderwebs, as NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter saw in 2006. Since its arrival on Mars from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station via an Atlas V rocket in 2012, Curiosity has been exploring the surface of the Red Planet, including these low ridges. In the middle of the photo, Curiosity's tracks can be seen as its wheels its way across the dust. Curiosity took this photo at the base of Mount Sharp, a 3 mile (5 km) tall mountain within Mars' Gale Crater. In the far distance of the image to the right is the "Texoli" butte, according to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). This panorama image was created by combining 291 images from Curiosity's Mast Camera, or Mastcam, taken over three days in mid-May 2025, according to JPL. The boxwork pattern Curiosity captured is of particular interest to astronomers because its ridges were created by ancient groundwater flowing across Mars surface. The minerals in this groundwater helped harden the surface, and after thousands of years of being sandblasted by atmospheric winds, low ridges appeared at the foot of Mount Sharp. While this ancient groundwater eventually disappeared from the planet entirely, astronomers believe it might have had nutrients to sustain ancient microbes. Using rovers like Curiosity, astronomers can get samples to determine whether there was life on Mars at some point in the planet's past. You can read more about ancient Martian water and NASA's rovers as astronomers continue to study the red planet.
BBC News
a day ago
- Science
- BBC News
Nasa's Mars Orbiter is on a roll
Computers, phones and consoles can sometimes get a bit out of date and need an update - and Nasa have been 'rolling out' one special update, up in nearly 20 years in space, Nasa's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has finally learned how to roll over. Scientists say the skills will mean it can look deeper and further on its hunt for water and other liquids on the red planet. But it's not as easy as just giving a command - a regular roll has to be planned weeks in advanced with only one or two large rolls performed once a year. What is the Mars Orbiter? The orbiter has been circling Mars since original mission was to search for evidence of water on Mars' surface, but after it completed that two-year mission, Nasa decided it was doing such a good job they extended has now spent years doing things like monitoring how Mars changes through the seasons, and searching the planet for places for human-made objects like the Perseverance rover to land. How does the Mars orbiter roll? Teaching the orbitor to get better at rolling isn't as simple as you might could always move a bit side to side but not too much because it has lots of different scientific instruments on board. These don't all point the same way, so when MRO moves to focus one instrument on one thing, the other instruments can go out of whack. Experts have compared it to turning your head to look at something while trying to hear or smell something, somewhere else, at the same time. So to do a successful and useful roll the computer had to given a complex set of instructions to follow so everything could still work plan isn't to do too many of these stunts in but it shows that even after more than ten years in space, Nasa are still finding new jobs for their travelling machines, far off in the solar system.
The Independent
07-06-2025
- Science
- The Independent
Mystery of the dark markings on Mars could finally be solved
Mysterious dark streaks on Mars, observed since the 1970s, are likely due to wind and dust activity rather than water, according to new research. Researchers used a machine learning algorithm to analyze 500,000 streaks from over 86,000 NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter images, creating a global Martian map. The study found that recurring slope lineae (RSLs) are not associated with factors suggesting liquid or frost, but rather with above-average wind speed and dust deposition. Older slope streaks likely form when dust slides off slopes due to seismic activity, winds, or meteoroid impacts, appearing near recent impact craters. The findings cast doubt on the interpretation of slope streaks and RSLs as habitable environments, suggesting a dry origin of formation.
Yahoo
06-06-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
These mysterious dark ‘streaks' on Mars aren't what scientists initially believed
Mysterious dark streaks first observed on Mars in the 1970s are not what many believed they were. Scientists now say the curious features that stretch for hundreds of meters down Martian slopes were likely signs of wind and dust activity — not water. 'A big focus of Mars research is understanding modern-day processes on Mars — including the possibility of liquid water on the surface,' Adomas Valantinas, a postdoctoral researcher at Brown University, said in a statement. 'Our study reviewed these features but found no evidence of water. Our model favors dry formation processes.' Valantinas and the University of Bern's Valentin Bickel coauthored the research which was recently published in the journal Nature Communications. To reach these conclusions, the researchers used a machine learning algorithm to catalog as many of the odd streaks as they could, creating a first-of-its-kind- global Martian map containing some 500,000 from more than 86,000 high-resolution images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Then, they compared their map to databases and catalogs of other factors, including temperature, wind speed, hydration, and rock slide activity. They looked for any correlations over hundreds of thousands of cases. The authors found that the ominous streaks that don't last for decades, known as recurring slope lineae or RSLs, are not generally associated with factors that suggest a liquid or frost origin. Those factors might include a specific slope orientation, high surface temperature fluctuations, and high humidity. The features were more likely to form in places with above-average wind speed and dust deposition. That points to a dry origin of formation, and they seem to show up in the same locations during the warmest periods of the Martian year before mysteriously vanishing. They concluded that the older slope streaks, which run down cliff faces and crater walls, most likely form when dust suddenly slides off slopes following seismic activity, winds, or even the shockwaves from meteoroid impacts. The streaks appear most often near recent impact craters, where shockwaves may shake the surface dust loose. The shorter-lived ones are typically found in places where dust devils or rockfalls are frequent. 'There were statistically significant correlations between new impact sites and the appearance of nearby slope streaks in certain regions, supporting this view,' NASA said. Previously, some had interpreted those streaks as liquid flows. It's possible that small amounts of water could mix with enough salt to create a flow on the frozen Martian surface, Brown University noted. The red planet was once more temperate, and there is water under the surface of Mars. Others believed they were triggered by dry process. These results cast new doubt on slope streaks and RSLs as habitable environments. 'That's the advantage of this big data approach,' Valantinas said. 'It helps us to rule out some hypotheses from orbit before we send spacecraft to explore.'
The Independent
06-06-2025
- Science
- The Independent
These mysterious dark ‘streaks' on Mars aren't what scientists initially believed
Mysterious dark streaks first observed on Mars in the 1970s are not what many believed they were. Scientists now say the curious features that stretch for hundreds of meters down Martian slopes were likely signs of wind and dust activity — not water. 'A big focus of Mars research is understanding modern-day processes on Mars — including the possibility of liquid water on the surface,' Adomas Valantinas, a postdoctoral researcher at Brown University, said in a statement. 'Our study reviewed these features but found no evidence of water. Our model favors dry formation processes.' Valantinas and the University of Bern's Valentin Bickel coauthored the research which was recently published in the journal Nature Communications. To reach these conclusions, the researchers used a machine learning algorithm to catalog as many of the odd streaks as they could, creating a first-of-its-kind- global Martian map containing some 500,000 from more than 86,000 high-resolution images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Then, they compared their map to databases and catalogs of other factors, including temperature, wind speed, hydration, and rock slide activity. They looked for any correlations over hundreds of thousands of cases. The authors found that the ominous streaks that don't last for decades, known as recurring slope lineae or RSLs, are not generally associated with factors that suggest a liquid or frost origin. Those factors might include a specific slope orientation, high surface temperature fluctuations, and high humidity. The features were more likely to form in places with above-average wind speed and dust deposition. That points to a dry origin of formation, and they seem to show up in the same locations during the warmest periods of the Martian year before mysteriously vanishing. They concluded that the older slope streaks, which run down cliff faces and crater walls, most likely form when dust suddenly slides off slopes following seismic activity, winds, or even the shockwaves from meteoroid impacts. The streaks appear most often near recent impact craters, where shockwaves may shake the surface dust loose. The shorter-lived ones are typically found in places where dust devils or rockfalls are frequent. 'There were statistically significant correlations between new impact sites and the appearance of nearby slope streaks in certain regions, supporting this view,' NASA said. Previously, some had interpreted those streaks as liquid flows. It's possible that small amounts of water could mix with enough salt to create a flow on the frozen Martian surface, Brown University noted. The red planet was once more temperate, and there is water under the surface of Mars. Others believed they were triggered by dry process. These results cast new doubt on slope streaks and RSLs as habitable environments. 'That's the advantage of this big data approach,' Valantinas said. 'It helps us to rule out some hypotheses from orbit before we send spacecraft to explore.'
