Mars rover – Artifex.News https://artifexnews.net Stay Connected. Stay Informed. Wed, 28 Aug 2024 00:28:31 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.2 https://artifexnews.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/cropped-Artifex-Round-32x32.png Mars rover – Artifex.News https://artifexnews.net 32 32 NASA’s Perseverance rover on Mars begins steep climb to rim of a crater https://artifexnews.net/article68575372-ece/ Wed, 28 Aug 2024 00:28:31 +0000 https://artifexnews.net/article68575372-ece/ Read More “NASA’s Perseverance rover on Mars begins steep climb to rim of a crater” »

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This image provided by NASA, shows a selfie of their Perseverance Mars rover, on July 23, 2024. The image is made up of 62 individual images that were stitched together. Photo: NASA via AP

NASA’s Perseverance rover is tackling a steep new challenge on Mars. The six-wheeled rover has spent the last 3 1/2 years roaming around the bottom of a crater. On Tuesday (August 27, 2024), it began climbing to the top.

The rover will go up 1,000 feet (305 metres) to the rim of Jezero Crater to dig up rock samples. Since landing on the red planet in 2021, Perseverance has collected 22 rock core samples from the floor of the crater, which was once filled with water.

The rover’s samples may help scientists piece together what the planet’s climate looked like billions of years ago — and learn whether any ancient Martian life lurked. NASA is exploring ways to bring the rock samples to Earth.

The bedrock at the rim of the crater might yield clues as to how rocky planets like Mars and Earth came to be, said Steven Lee with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.

But the road ahead won’t be easy. Perseverance will scale rocky terrain and slopes of up to 23 degrees on the months-long journey.

“Perseverance has certainly been a real trooper,” said Lee. The rover has logged around 29 kilometers during its exploration.

The rock at the top of the crater may have come from past hydrothermal vents — sites where heated water and dissolved minerals spewed out after cycling underneath the planet’s surface. On Earth, similar sites — like at Yellowstone National Park — are considered a cradle for life.



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Scientists surprised by source of largest quake detected on Mars https://artifexnews.net/article67442445-ece/ Fri, 20 Oct 2023 12:06:32 +0000 https://artifexnews.net/article67442445-ece/ Read More “Scientists surprised by source of largest quake detected on Mars” »

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The planet Mars is shown in this NASA Hubble Space Telescope view taken May 12, 2016.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

On May 4, 2022, NASA’s InSight lander detected the largest quake yet recorded on Mars, one with a 4.7 magnitude – fairly modest by Earth standards but strong for our planetary neighbour.

Given Mars lacks the geological process called plate tectonics that generates earthquakes on our planet, scientists suspected a meteorite impact had caused this marsquake. But a search for an impact crater came up empty, leading scientists to conclude that this quake was caused by tectonic activity – rumbling in the planet’s interior – and giving them a deeper understanding about what makes Mars shake, rattle and roll.

“We concluded that the largest marsquake seen by InSight was tectonic, not an impact. This is important as it shows the faults on Mars can host hefty marsquakes,” said planetary scientist Ben Fernando of the University of Oxford in England, lead author of the research published this week in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. “We really thought that this event might be an impact.”

“This represents a significant step forward in our understanding of Martian seismic activity and takes us one step closer to better unraveling the planet’s tectonic processes,” added Imperial College London planetary scientist and study co-author Constantinos Charalambous, co-chair of InSight’s Geology Working Group.

Also Read | Meet the scientist (sort of) spending a year on Mars

NASA retired InSight in 2022 after four years of operations. In all, InSight’s seismometer instrument detected 1,319 marsquakes.

Earth’s crust – its outermost layer – is divided into immense plates that continually shift, triggering quakes. The Martian crust is a single solid plate. But that does not mean all is quiet on the Martian front.

“There are still faults that are active on Mars. The planet is still slowly shrinking and cooling, and there is still motion within the crust even though there are no active plate tectonic processes going on anymore. These faults can trigger quakes,” Fernando said.

The researchers determined that the 4.7 magnitude quake was centered in the Al-Qahira Vallis region in the Martian southern hemisphere, roughly 1,200 miles (2,000 km) southeast of InSight’s location just north of the equator. They think it originated perhaps a few dozen miles (km) below the surface.

“Most of the marsquakes we’ve detected thus far have been associated with a region called Cerberus Fossae, located eastward of InSight. Conversely, the origin of this one left us puzzled, as no discernible surface features indicated ongoing tectonic processes as a likely cause, particularly ones that would cause such a powerful quake,” Charalambous added.

The energy it released surpassed the cumulative energy from all the other marsquakes InSight recorded. The researchers initially noted similarities in its seismic signature to two meteorite impacts detected by InSight that gouged craters roughly 500 feet (150 meters) wide.

Also Read | With drained battery and no fuel, Mangalyaan bids adieu

They enlisted the various space agencies with spacecraft monitoring the Martian surface – the European, U.S., Chinese, Indian and United Arab Emirates agencies – to check for evidence of an impact on the day of the quake. No luck.

“The absence of a crater in our image search for this large marsquake represents a significant milestone in interpreting seismic signals on Mars,” Charalambous said.

With future human missions to Mars in mind, a greater understanding of Martian seismic activity is pertinent.

“On Earth, a quake of this size would probably break windows, shake things off shelves, etc., but would not bring the house down,” Fernando said.

Charalambous said the location of the majority of the marsquakes detected by InSight remained uncertain, with a poor understanding of the mechanisms that triggered them.

“Each seismic event detected by InSight is a valuable piece of the puzzle, but this particular event plays a crucial role in unveiling the Red Planet’s geological history, shedding light on its interior and evolution,” Charalambous said.

“Furthermore, it provides essential insights into the distribution of seismic activity on Mars, which is a vital consideration for planning future human missions to the planet.”



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