Articles

Emily Lakdawalla

Carbonate rocks should be all over Mars. But it's been hard to find carbonates—surprisingly so.

Ryan Anderson

Hey, remember when I was randomly interviewed by the Australian radio station triple j a few weeks ago as part of their feature on the 50th anniversary of the laser?

Emily Lakdawalla

The latest HiRISE images of the Phoenix polar lander, taken near Mars' northern summer solstice, show why we haven't heard from the spacecraft since it fell silent on November 2, 2008: it appears the solar panels have collapsed.

A.J.S. Rayl

The Mars Exploration Rovers made it through their fourth winter solstice in what is the coldest, most challenging Martian winter the twin robot field geologists have experienced.

Emily Lakdawalla

As I discussed on Monday, Opportunity is in the middle of a lengthy trek toward a crater named Endeavour and its tantalizing upraised smectite-bearing rim.

Emily Lakdawalla

Opportunity's kilometers-long march across the sands of Meridiani Planum is a great story, and the journey is fun to follow; but what could be worth such a long march?

Emily Lakdawalla

Yesterday the Jet Propulsion Laboratory formally announced the launch dates chosen for Curiosity, the next generation Mars rover also known as Mars Science Laboratory.

Emily Lakdawalla

Today is sol 2,246 of Opportunity's mission to Mars; as I write, it's just before 7:00 local solar time. If this sol passes, as her previous 2,245 have done, with Opportunity still alive and speaking to Earth, she will have surpassed a record set on November 12, 1982: Opportunity will pass Viking Lander 1 as the longest-lived landed Mars mission.

Emily Lakdawalla

Thumbing her nose at this whole winter thing, Opportunity drove 20 meters yesterday, sol 2,240, on the winter solstice.

Ryan Anderson

Through a crazy random happenstance, I was just interviewed by a friend of a friend of a friend at Australian radio station 'triple j' for a feature on lasers!

Emily Lakdawalla

It's the solstice on Mars today: summer in the north, winter in the south.

Emily Lakdawalla

A good start to my day today: The New York Times' Lens Blog featured the

Emily Lakdawalla

On Mars, at 15:00 local true solar time on May 2, a solitary rover gazed southward across her own dusty deck and snapped three photos, actually three sets of three photos, which were combined to make this view.

Emily Lakdawalla

A recent entry by Bethany Ehlmann from the blog of the Planetary Geomorphology Working Group of the International Association of Geomorphologists demonstrates how you can combine the power of different types of data to tease out a rich story of the past history of one spot on Mars.

Emily Lakdawalla

Just a linky post today, as I am nanny-less.

A.J.S. Rayl

The Mars Exploration Rovers' fourth Martian winter is proving to be the harshest one yet and Spirit and Opportunity are getting colder than ever before. With temperatures on the Red Planet dropping in April and the Martian winter solstice still two weeks away, the season has turned into a shivering nail-biter.

Emily Lakdawalla

Either Spirit is the longest-lived landed Mars mission ever, or she is not. We won't know for certain unless we manage to observe a radio signal from her.

Emily Lakdawalla

Got some 3D glasses handy? Check out this awesome view of a very strange feature on Mars, courtesy of Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's Context Camera (CTX).

Emily Lakdawalla

After three listening campaigns taking place from January through April, Mars Odyssey has detected no signal from Phoenix.

Emily Lakdawalla

Yesterday was the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter HiRISE team's latest flood of archived images, 1,025 of them. I skipped forward to page 42 (what other number would I pick?) and started browsing from there.