Members Can Post Anonymously On This Site
-
Similar Topics
-
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 The Solar System The Sun Mercury Venus Earth The Moon Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Pluto & Dwarf Planets Asteroids, Comets & Meteors The Kuiper Belt The Oort Cloud 2 min read
Sols 4416-4417: New Year, New Clouds
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity captured this image of noctilucent clouds using its Right Navigation Camera on sol 4401 — or Martian day 4,401 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — on Dec. 23, 2024, at 08:57:15 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech Earth planning date: Monday, Jan. 6, 2025
After our marathon holiday plan, we’re easing back into the new year with a standard two-sol plan. We did arrive today to the news that the drive hadn’t made it as far as we wanted, but luckily the rover planners determined that we were still in a good position to do contact science on two wintry targets — “Snow Creek” and “Winter Creek.” We also packed in lots of remote science with ChemCam using LIBS on “Grapevine” and “Skull Rock,” and we are doing long-distance imaging of the Texoli and Wilkerson buttes, and Gould Mesa. Mastcam will be imaging a number of targets near and far as well including “Red Box”’ “Point Mugu,” “Stone Canyon,” “Pine Cove,” and “Hummingbird Sage,” which will examine various structures in the bedrock. We can’t forget about the atmosphere either — we have a couple dust-devil surveys to look for dust lifting, but the real star of the show (at least for me) is the cloud imaging.
While we’re just into 2025 here on Earth, we’re also near the start of a new year on Mars! A Mars year starts at the northern vernal equinox (or the start of autumn in the southern hemisphere, where Curiosity is), and Mars year 38 started on Nov. 12.
We’re about a third of the way through autumn on Mars now, and the southern Martian autumn and winter bring one thing — clouds! Near the start of the Martian year we start seeing clouds around sunset. These are noctilucent (meaning “night illuminated”) clouds. Even though the sun has set in Gale Crater, the clouds are high enough in the atmosphere that the sun still shines on them, making them seem to almost glow in the sky. You can see this with clouds on Earth, too, around twilight! Mars year 38 will be our fourth year capturing these twilight clouds, and the Navcam images (one of which you can see above) already show it’s shaping up to be another year of spectacular clouds!
Written by Alex Innanen, Atmospheric Scientist at York University
Share
Details
Last Updated Jan 08, 2025 Related Terms
Blogs Explore More
2 min read Sols 4402-4415: Rover Decks and Sequence Calls for the Holidays
Article
1 week ago
4 min read Sols 4398-4401: Holidays Ahead, Rocks Under the Wheels
Article
3 weeks ago
3 min read Perseverance Blasts Past the Top of Jezero Crater Rim
Article
3 weeks ago
Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun, and the seventh largest. It’s the only planet we know of inhabited…
All Mars Resources
Explore this collection of Mars images, videos, resources, PDFs, and toolkits. Discover valuable content designed to inform, educate, and inspire,…
Rover Basics
Each robotic explorer sent to the Red Planet has its own unique capabilities driven by science. Many attributes of a…
Mars Exploration: Science Goals
The key to understanding the past, present or future potential for life on Mars can be found in NASA’s four…
View the full article
-
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 The Solar System The Sun Mercury Venus Earth The Moon Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Pluto & Dwarf Planets Asteroids, Comets & Meteors The Kuiper Belt The Oort Cloud 2 min read
Sols 4402-4415: Rover Decks and Sequence Calls for the Holidays
An image under the left-front wheel of NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity shows a block that Curiosity drove over and possibly broke in half. The rover acquired this image using its Mars Descent Imager (MARDI) on sol 4396 — Martian day 4,396 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — on Dec. 18, 2024 at 06:03:35 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS Earth planning date: Friday, Dec. 20, 2024
Welcome to the 2024 holiday plan for Curiosity! This year we’re spanning 14 sols to last us through the Earth new year. And this is my fourth year operating Mastcam during the holidays (throwback to 2023 Marsmas!). I already knew to expect a long day, so I got my lunch prepared — blew Mars a kiss in the pre-dawn sky — and headed to work at 0600 Pacific time to start planning prep. Luckily my team got a head start on Mastcam images by including a full 360-degree panorama, post-drive, last plan, so I just had to fill in some gaps and cover some buttes with our higher-resolution camera. In total we’re only planning about 438 images this holiday, which is a pretty light haul if you can believe it! We also didn’t pass SRAP to unstow the arm (again) today, which is a bummer for science but usually makes my job easier since Mastcam doesn’t have to worry about where the arm might be during our imaging. One instrument’s coal is another instrument’s present!
So we’re doing things a little funky this holiday. We’re planning science on the first, seventh, 13th, and 14th sols — with a drive and a soliday! The hardest part of this plan was keeping it all straight in our heads.
Without any contact science planned, MAHLI went on holiday early (actually, she’s been out all week!) and APXS only had to babysit an atmospheric integration, which doesn’t require any arm motion. ChemCam has three LIBS and four RMI mosaics planned, which is definitely more than usual. But actually, the highest sequence count for today goes to Mastcam! Our usual limit is around 20 sequences for complexity reasons, but today I delivered 34 total sequences. Of those 34 sequences, 10 are for tracking surface changes from wind, seven are for measuring the atmospheric opacity, three are ChemCam LIBS documentations, three are for documenting our location post-drive, two are large mosaics of Texoli and Wilkerson buttes, and two are for noctilucent cloud searching (our first attempts to find clouds this Martian winter!).
With any luck, we’ll start passing SRAP again in 2025 after another approximately 58-meter drive (about 190 feet). Until then, Earthlings — Merry Marsmas and Happy Earth New Year!
Written by Natalie Moore, Mission Operations Specialist at Malin Space Science Systems
Share
Details
Last Updated Dec 30, 2024 Related Terms
Blogs Explore More
4 min read Sols 4398-4401: Holidays Ahead, Rocks Under the Wheels
Article
2 weeks ago
3 min read Perseverance Blasts Past the Top of Jezero Crater Rim
Article
2 weeks ago
3 min read Sols 4396-4397: Roving in a Martian Wonderland
Article
2 weeks ago
Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun, and the seventh largest. It’s the only planet we know of inhabited…
All Mars Resources
Explore this collection of Mars images, videos, resources, PDFs, and toolkits. Discover valuable content designed to inform, educate, and inspire,…
Rover Basics
Each robotic explorer sent to the Red Planet has its own unique capabilities driven by science. Many attributes of a…
Mars Exploration: Science Goals
The key to understanding the past, present or future potential for life on Mars can be found in NASA’s four…
View the full article
-
By NASA
3 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Latha Balijepalle, a senior database administrator at NASA Ames, encourages others to take a risk and pursue challenges in their work, like trying something new that might open doors to a new opportunity.NASA/Brandon Torres Navarrete When Madhavi Latha Balijepalle noticed that her morning commute took her past NASA Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, she set a new career goal for herself: working for NASA.
“I started manifesting it, thinking about it every day as I drove by. When I started looking for a new job, I saw an opening and decided to apply,” said Balijepalle, a senior database administrator working at the Airspace Operations Laboratory (AOL) at NASA Ames.
Eight and a half years later, she supports the researchers and developers who research next-generation solutions to advance aircraft technology and air traffic management.
A journey into the unknown
Balijepalle’s journey to NASA started thousands of miles away. She grew up in a small town in southern India, studying electrical engineering in college and establishing a career in information technology, working in C++ and Python.
When her husband found a job opportunity in the United States, Balijepalle’s life took an unexpected turn.
“I never planned to move to America,” said Balijepalle. “It was not easy to come here, even though my husband had a job. I stayed in India for almost nine months, before he found a different job that would help us with my visa and documentation.”
After settling into her new country, growing her family, and developing in her new career, Balijepalle began to ponder her dream job at NASA. She and her younger daughter, a fellow space fan, enjoyed talking about the agency’s work in space, and when a Linux administrator position opened up, she jumped at the chance.
A dream job becomes reality
At the lab, Balijepalle was initially responsible for managing the lab’s Linux servers and applications. Today, she also supports researchers and developers with development, automation, and deployment of their work.
“Latha is the lifeblood of the lab,” said Jeff Homola, co-leader of the Airborne Operations Laboratory at NASA Ames. “Without her unwavering dedication to making sure our systems are safe, secure, up to date, and running smoothly, we would not be able to do what we do in the lab.”
One of Balijepalle’s proudest achievements during her NASA career is her language skills. Growing up, she spoke Telugu and Hindi, and learned English, but communication was still a challenge when she arrived at NASA.
“I spoke English when I came to America, but not as well, and not using the technical language we use at NASA,” said Balijepalle. “I’m proud that I’ve improved my communications skills.”
“Step outside your comfort zone”
Looking back on the commute that changed her life, Balijepalle says she owes it all to being up to the challenge.
“I wasn’t a risk taker, I didn’t think about stepping outside my comfort zone, but as I drove by NASA Ames each day, I started to think about astronauts. They step outside their comfort zone and leave the planet, so maybe I could take a risk, too.”
For those who also dream of working at NASA one day, Balijepalle has some advice: try doing it her way.
“Start thinking about it and manifesting your dream. Maybe it will come true, and maybe it won’t, but you might as well try.”
Share
Details
Last Updated Dec 23, 2024 Related Terms
Ames Research Center General Explore More
16 min read NASA Ames Astrogram – December 2024
Article 3 days ago 5 min read NASA’s Ames Research Center Celebrates 85 Years of Innovation
Article 3 days ago 3 min read NASA’s Webb Reveals Smallest Asteroids Yet Found in Main Asteroid Belt
Article 3 days ago Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA
Missions
Humans in Space
Climate Change
Solar System
View the full article
-
By NASA
NASA’s Dawn spacecraft captured this image of Vesta as it left the giant asteroid’s orbit in 2012. The framing camera was looking down at the north pole, which is in the middle of the image.NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA Known as flow formations, these channels could be etched on bodies that would seem inhospitable to liquid because they are exposed to the extreme vacuum conditions of space.
Pocked with craters, the surfaces of many celestial bodies in our solar system provide clear evidence of a 4.6-billion-year battering by meteoroids and other space debris. But on some worlds, including the giant asteroid Vesta that NASA’s Dawn mission explored, the surfaces also contain deep channels, or gullies, whose origins are not fully understood.
A prime hypothesis holds that they formed from dry debris flows driven by geophysical processes, such as meteoroid impacts, and changes in temperature due to Sun exposure. A recent NASA-funded study, however, provides some evidence that impacts on Vesta may have triggered a less-obvious geologic process: sudden and brief flows of water that carved gullies and deposited fans of sediment. By using lab equipment to mimic conditions on Vesta, the study, which appeared in Planetary Science Journal, detailed for the first time what the liquid could be made of and how long it would flow before freezing.
Although the existence of frozen brine deposits on Vesta is unconfirmed, scientists have previously hypothesized that meteoroid impacts could have exposed and melted ice that lay under the surface of worlds like Vesta. In that scenario, flows resulting from this process could have etched gullies and other surface features that resemble those on Earth.
To explore potential explanations for deep channels, or gullies, seen on Vesta, scientists used JPL’s Dirty Under-vacuum Simulation Testbed for Icy Environments, or DUSTIE, to simulate conditions on the giant asteroid that would occur after meteoroids strike the surface.NASA/JPL-Caltech But how could airless worlds — celestial bodies without atmospheres and exposed to the intense vacuum of space — host liquids on the surface long enough for them to flow? Such a process would run contrary to the understanding that liquids quickly destabilize in a vacuum, changing to a gas when the pressure drops.
“Not only do impacts trigger a flow of liquid on the surface, the liquids are active long enough to create specific surface features,” said project leader and planetary scientist Jennifer Scully of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, where the experiments were conducted. “But for how long? Most liquids become unstable quickly on these airless bodies, where the vacuum of space is unyielding.”
The critical component turns out to be sodium chloride — table salt. The experiments found that in conditions like those on Vesta, pure water froze almost instantly, while briny liquids stayed fluid for at least an hour. “That’s long enough to form the flow-associated features identified on Vesta, which were estimated to require up to a half-hour,” said lead author Michael J. Poston of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio.
Launched in 2007, the Dawn spacecraft traveled to the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter to orbit Vesta for 14 months and Ceres for almost four years. Before ending in 2018, the mission uncovered evidence that Ceres had been home to a subsurface reservoir of brine and may still be transferring brines from its interior to the surface. The recent research offers insights into processes on Ceres but focuses on Vesta, where ice and salts may produce briny liquid when heated by an impact, scientists said.
Re-creating Vesta
To re-create Vesta-like conditions that would occur after a meteoroid impact, the scientists relied on a test chamber at JPL called the Dirty Under-vacuum Simulation Testbed for Icy Environments, or DUSTIE. By rapidly reducing the air pressure surrounding samples of liquid, they mimicked the environment around fluid that comes to the surface. Exposed to vacuum conditions, pure water froze instantly. But salty fluids hung around longer, continuing to flow before freezing.
The brines they experimented with were a little over an inch (a few centimeters) deep; scientists concluded the flows on Vesta that are yards to tens of yards deep would take even longer to refreeze.
The researchers were also able to re-create the “lids” of frozen material thought to form on brines. Essentially a frozen top layer, the lids stabilize the liquid beneath them, protecting it from being exposed to the vacuum of space — or, in this case the vacuum of the DUSTIE chamber — and helping the liquid flow longer before freezing again.
This phenomenon is similar to how on Earth lava flows farther in lava tubes than when exposed to cool surface temperatures. It also matches up with modeling research conducted around potential mud volcanoes on Mars and volcanoes that may have spewed icy material from volcanoes on Jupiter’s moon Europa.
“Our results contribute to a growing body of work that uses lab experiments to understand how long liquids last on a variety of worlds,” Scully said.
Find more information about NASA’s Dawn mission here:
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/dawn/
News Media Contacts
Gretchen McCartney
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-287-4115
gretchen.p.mccartney@jpl.nasa.gov
Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov
2024-178
Share
Details
Last Updated Dec 20, 2024 Related Terms
Dawn Asteroids Ceres Jet Propulsion Laboratory Vesta Explore More
5 min read Avalanches, Icy Explosions, and Dunes: NASA Is Tracking New Year on Mars
Article 1 hour ago 5 min read Cutting-Edge Satellite Tracks Lake Water Levels in Ohio River Basin
Article 3 days ago 5 min read NASA Mars Orbiter Spots Retired InSight Lander to Study Dust Movement
Article 4 days ago Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA
Missions
Humans in Space
Climate Change
Solar System
View the full article
-
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 The Solar System The Sun Mercury Venus Earth The Moon Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Pluto & Dwarf Planets Asteroids, Comets & Meteors The Kuiper Belt The Oort Cloud 4 min read
Sols 4398-4401: Holidays Ahead, Rocks Under the Wheels
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image using its Left Navigation Camera on Dec. 17, 2024, at 23:24:13 UTC — Sol 4396, or Martian day 4,396, or the Mars Science Laboratory mission. NASA/JPL-Caltech Earth planning date: Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024
It’s almost holiday time, and preparations are going ahead on Earth and Mars! For myself that means having a packed suitcase sitting behind me to go on my holiday travels tomorrow morning. For Curiosity that means looking forward to a long semi-rest, as we will not do our usual planning for the geology and mineralogy, but will still be monitoring the atmospheric conditions throughout. Today should have been a normal planning day with lots of contact and remote science. Well, Mars had other ideas.
The regular readers of this blog know that we are driving through quite difficult terrain. The image above gives a good impression on what the rover is dealing with: lots of rocks embedded in sand. I think even hiking would be quite difficult there, let alone driving autonomously. Curiosity, thanks to our excellent rover drivers, makes it successfully most of the time, but here and there Mars just doesn’t play nice. Thus, the rover stopped after 14 meters (about 46 feet) of a planned much longer drive. One of the wheels had caught a low spot between two rocks, and — safety first — the rover stopped and waited for our assessment. The rover drivers found no major problem, as it’s just the middle wheel that hit a bit of a rough patch, and driving can continue in this plan. But better safe than sorry, especially on another planet where there are no tow trucks to get us out of difficulty!
There was, however, quite a bit of discussion before we decided that course of action. Not because of the wheels themselves, but because the rover also stands in a position where it can only communicate directly with Earth in limited ways as the antenna is not facing the expected direction after the sudden stop. Of course, we still have the orbiters to talk to our rover, so we know it’s all fine. And — all things are three — this all happened on the penultimate plan of the year! Friday we’ll be planning a large set of sols that the rover will be executing on its own on Mars, monitoring the atmosphere and taking regular images of its surroundings, while the Earth-based team enjoys the well-deserved break. We really want to make sure to have everything going right on a day like today, so we all can enjoy the holidays without worrying about the rover!
With today being the last day of normal science planning, we had lots of ideas, but had to keep the arm stowed. The drive fault also meant that we had to forego arm movements, as the rover was sitting on a few rocks, and one of the wheels in that little depression that stopped us, all in ways that meant that a shift of rover weight (such as occurs when we move the arm) could make the rover move. Avoiding this situation, the team kept the arm stowed and focused on remote observations today. ChemCam observes a vein target called “Monrovia Peak” and takes remote images on the target “Jawbone Canyon” and up Mount Sharp toward the yardang unit. Mastcam looks at the target “Circle X Ranch” to investigate the material around the rocks embedded in the sand, looks at “Anacapa Island,” which is a vein target, “Channel Islands,” which is an aeolian ripple, and target “Gould Mesa,” which gets the team especially excited as this is the first glimpse of the so-called boxwork structures, which we saw from orbit even before Curiosity landed. Finally, we drive away from the spot that held us up today. Let’s hope Mars has read the script this time!
For the looooong break, we are planning autonomous and remote investigations only, and this starts before Friday’s planning, so that we know all is ok! Thus, the other three sols in today’s planning have Aegis, the automated ChemCam LIBS observation, a Mastcam 360° mosaic, and many, many atmospheric observations. It’s going to be a feast for DAN, REMS, and generally the atmospheric science on Mars, while here on Earth we enjoy the treats of the season. The Curiosity team hopes you do, too. See you in 2025!
Written by Susanne Schwenzer, Planetary Geologist at The Open University
Share
Details
Last Updated Dec 20, 2024 Related Terms
Blogs Explore More
3 min read Perseverance Blasts Past the Top of Jezero Crater Rim
Article
11 hours ago
3 min read Sols 4396-4397: Roving in a Martian Wonderland
Article
2 days ago
2 min read Sols 4393-4395: Weekend Work at the Base of Texoli Butte
Article
4 days ago
Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun, and the seventh largest. It’s the only planet we know of inhabited…
All Mars Resources
Explore this collection of Mars images, videos, resources, PDFs, and toolkits. Discover valuable content designed to inform, educate, and inspire,…
Rover Basics
Each robotic explorer sent to the Red Planet has its own unique capabilities driven by science. Many attributes of a…
Mars Exploration: Science Goals
The key to understanding the past, present or future potential for life on Mars can be found in NASA’s four…
View the full article
-
-
Check out these Videos
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.