With its hills and distant mountains, the landscape seems somehow familiar yet at the same time eerily alien.
The striking image was captured just recently by NASA’s Curiosity rover as it continues its years-long exploration of Mars.
“Some perspective: These hills have been here for billions of years, and the tracks I leave will fade over time,” Curiosity — or rather the NASA team operating it from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California — said in a message accompanying the image.
The rover added: “It’s humbling to know my time of exploration is just a brief moment in history on such an ancient planet.”
Some perspective: These hills have been here for billions of years, and the tracks I leave will fade over time.
It’s humbling to know my time of exploration is just a brief moment in history on such an ancient planet. pic.twitter.com/ihbiZJ65mB
The remarkable Curiosity rover has been trundling along the surface of the red planet for nearly 13 years after landing in Mars’ Gale Crater in 2012.
The main goal of the mission is to determine whether Mars was ever had the conditions to host microbial life, though its findings will also assist NASA in preparations for the first crewed mission to the distant planet, for which a date has yet to be set.
About the size of a Mini Cooper, Curiosity conducts its ongoing research using 17 cameras and a robotic arm containing a suite of specialized laboratory-like tools and instruments.
The six-wheeled has already found chemical and mineral evidence strongly supporting the idea that Mars once had habitable environments. It was also the first rover to drill into martian rocks and analyze subsurface samples, research that revealed past water activity and various environmental conditions.
During its time on Mars, Curiosity has traveled nearly 19 miles, captured more than a million images, and continues to provide valuable data on Mars’ geology and climate.
It’s fair to say that Curiosity’s discoveries have fundamentally changed our understanding of Mars, confirming that the planet was once potentially habitable while also paving the way for future robotic and human exploration.
Incredibly, the mission was originally expected to last no more than a couple of years, but the rover’s early success and robust performance prompted NASA to continue it.
The space agency has yet to announce a specific end date for the mission, suggesting that it will continue for as long as Curiosity remains functional and capable of returning valuable scientific data.
After 13 suborbital test flights and more than $15 billion in development costs, SpaceX's Starship has finally reached orbit. The 407-foot megarocket, the most powerful ever built, lifted off from Starbase, Texas, on Monday and delivered its first real payload on it's 14th attempt. The celebration came with an asterisk, though, since SpaceX had to cut the planned 10-hour mission to roughly three hours.
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/2104601695711904180
SpaceX is finally ready to give Starship its biggest test yet. The company says the massive rocket's 14th test flight is scheduled for September 22, when it will attempt to put the upper stage into Earth orbit for the first time. The launch is currently pending regulatory approval, with a 75-minute window opening at 7:15 a.m. CT.
Starship has 26 Starlink satellites to deliver
For decades, humanity has looked up at the Moon and wondered what it would be like to live on it. Think sprawling cities, factories, research centers, and permanent human settlements. Unfortunately, there is one fairly fundamental problem with that vision.
A new study published in Frontiers in Space Technologies argues that even the Moon's potentially enormous reserves of frozen water may be nowhere near enough to support city-sized populations sustainably. Researchers Martin Elvis and Jonathan McDowell estimate that the permanently shadowed regions near the lunar poles could contain roughly one billion tons of water. It sounds like an extraordinary amount until you put a million thirsty humans next to it.