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By NASA
Curiosity Navigation Curiosity Home Mission Overview Where is Curiosity? Mission Updates Science Overview Instruments Highlights Exploration Goals News and Features Multimedia Curiosity Raw Images Images Videos Audio Mosaics More Resources Mars Missions Mars Sample Return Mars Perseverance Rover Mars Curiosity Rover MAVEN Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Odyssey More Mars Missions Mars Home 3 min read
Sols 4509-4510: A weekend of long drives
This image was taken by Left Navigation Camera onboard NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 4507 (2025-04-11 03:54:35 UTC). Written by Abigail Fraeman, Planetary Geologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Earth planning date: Friday, April 11, 2025
Curiosity is continuing to book it to the potential boxwork structures. The rover drove over 50 meters on Wednesday, and we plan to drive more than 50 meters again in today’s plan thanks to an unusually good viewshed that allows us to see far ahead. We’ve been able to see glimpses of the boxwork structures in the distance for a few weeks now, and I am really excited about being able to plan long drives that get us closer and closer. What will we find when we reach them?
Power was on everyone’s mind as we put the plan together today. The science team had lots of amazing ideas about observations to collect from our current location, but we had to carefully plan and prioritize them to make sure we didn’t use too much power and leave the rover battery lower than we’d like for Monday’s plan. Winter on Mars certainly keeps us on our toes! We ended up putting together what I think is a pretty good set of activities for the weekend. MAHLI, APXS, and ChemCam will all work together to observe a flat rock in front of us named “Iron Mountain.” MAHLI will also do an experiment with this rock, testing different combinations of camera positions to see which produces the best data to help us generate 3D models of the rock’s surface. I know rocks don’t have feelings, but if they did, I hope Iron Mountain can use this time to feel a bit like a movie star on the red carpet, getting photographed from all angles. Mastcam will also be photographing the surroundings, working with ChemCam’s RMI imager to take images the ridge containing boxwork structures named “Ghost Mountain,” and taking some solo shots of targets in the foreground named “Redondo Flat,” “Silverwood Sanctuary,” and the oft photographed Gould Mesa. Navcam, REMS, and DAN round out the science plan with some environmental observations. We’ll be getting one more science and engineering hybrid observation when we collect ChemCam passive spectral data of the instrument’s calibration target in parallel with one of our communication passes. This observation is part of a series of tests we’re doing to run rover activities in parallel with these passes, and if successful, will allow us to be more even more power efficient in the future.
We’re also celebrating a soliday this weekend, which means we only have a two-sol plan instead of our usual three as the Mars and Earth time zones re-align for the next few weeks. I’m looking forward to seeing where Curiosity drives next week.
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By European Space Agency
The European Space Agency's XMM-Newton is playing a crucial role in investigating the longest and most energetic bursts of X-rays seen from a newly awakened black hole. Watching this strange behaviour unfold in real time offers a unique opportunity to learn more about these powerful events and the mysterious behaviour of massive black holes.
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By USH
Io, Jupiter’s famous volcanic moon, is already the most volcanically active place in the solar system. But between Halloween and Christmas of 2024, something happened that was extreme, even by Io’s standards.
Its south pole erupted in a way astronomers weren’t even sure was possible. A super volcano exploded with such force that it was visible from space as a massive dark blotch in the atmosphere. In infrared, the eruption was so intense that it saturated scientific sensors.
How Big Was This Eruption? To grasp the scale, imagine Io were the size of Earth. This super volcano would cover an area larger than Texas, larger than Egypt. The aftermath would trigger a global volcanic winter lasting years, possibly decades.
The eruption unleashed energy equivalent to 260 Yellowstone's and its lava field could bury everything from New York to Kansas under 10 feet of molten rock or stretch from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes. Every minute, the eruption released energy equal to 1.5 million Hiroshima bombs.
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By NASA
Depending on where you stand at the lunar South Pole, you may experience temperatures of 130°F (54°C) during sunlit periods, or as low as -334°F (-203°C) in a permanently shadowed region. Keeping crews comfortable and tools and vehicles operational in such extreme temperatures is a key challenge for engineers at Johnson Space Center working on elements of NASA’s Artemis campaign.
Abigail Howard is part of that innovative team. Since joining Johnson in 2019, she has conducted thermal analysis for projects including the lunar terrain vehicle (LTV), pressurized rover, VIPER (Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover), and Gateway – humanity’s first lunar space station. Her work explores how different materials and components respond to different temperatures and how to manage heat transfer in products and structures.
She currently serves as the passive thermal system manager for the Extravehicular Activity and Human Surface Mobility Program, leading a small team of thermal analysts. Together, they provide expertise on passive thermal design, hardware, modeling, and testing to vendors and international partners that are developing rovers and tools for human exploration of the lunar surface.
Abigail Howard posing in front of a mockup of VIPER (Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover), which she worked on as a thermal analyst for three years. Image courtesy of Abigail Howard Howard said her sudden shift from thermal analysis engineer to thermal system manager involved a steep learning curve. “Every day was like drinking through a firehose. I had to learn very quickly about systems engineering tasks, project phases, and leadership, while also learning about many new thermal approaches and designs so that I could provide good insight to project leadership and program vendors and partners,” she said. “Having a good group of senior engineers and friends to lean on and building up my team helped me get through it, but the single most important thing was not giving up. It gets easier and persistence pays off!”
Abigail Howard (left) and Brittany Spivey (right) after presenting their poster at the 2022 International Symposium for Materials in the Space Environment in Leiden, the Netherlands. Image courtesy of Abigail Howard Howard feels fortunate to have worked on many interesting projects at NASA and presented her work at several conferences. Top achievements include watching her first NASA project launch successfully on Artemis I and supporting the LTV Source Evaluation Board as the thermal representative. “Something I’m really proud of is obtaining funding for and managing a test that looked at thermal performance of dust mitigation for spacecraft radiators,” she added.
Abigail Howard removes lunar dust simulant from a tray holding radiator test coupons during a test to evaluate thermal performance of radiators with integrated Electrodynamic Dust Shield for dust mitigation. Image courtesy of Abigail Howard She believes interesting and challenging work is important but says the biggest determinant to professional success and satisfaction is your team and your team lead. “Having a really great team and team lead on Gateway thermal taught me the kind of leader and teammate I want to be,” she said.
Howard encourages fellow members of the Artemis Generation to not let imposter syndrome get in their way. “Focus on the evidence of your abilities and remember that no one is in this alone,” she said. “It’s okay to ask for help.”
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