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Perseverance discovers a doughnut-shaped rock on Mars
NASA's Perseverance Mars rover captured this doughnut-shaped rock in Jezero Crater from about 328 feet (100 meters) away using its Remote Microscopic Imager (RMI), part of the SuperCam instrument, on June 22, 2023, the 832nd Martian day, or sol, of the mission.
Oddly shaped rocks aren't uncommon, either on Earth or Mars; they're often formed over eons as winds sandblast rock faces. This particular rock may have formed after a smaller rock (or multiple rocks) eroded near its center. That left behind a cavity that was later enlarged by the wind.
The figure below shows the same rock in its broader context, when it was first spotted by the rover's Mastcam-Z instrument from about 1,312 feet (400 meters away) on April 15, 2023, the 765th Martian day, or sol, of the mission.
SuperCam is led by Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, where the instrument's body unit was developed. That part of the instrument includes several spectrometers as well as control electronics and software. The mast unit, including RMI, was developed and built by several laboratories of the CNRS (the French research center) and French universities under the contracting authority of Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES), the French space agency.
Arizona State University leads the operations of the Mastcam-Z instrument, working in collaboration with Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego, on the design, fabrication, testing, and operation of the cameras, and in collaboration with the Niels Bohr Institute of the University of Copenhagen on the design, fabrication, and testing of the calibration targets.
A key objective for Perseverance's mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet's geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust).
Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.
The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA's Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.
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kuramirocket · 2 years
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Katya Echazarreta was student of the year at San Diego City College in 2016
A San Diego City College alumna who has dreamed of exploring the cosmos since she was a child learned Monday that her wish will come true during a mission in which she will become the first Mexico-born woman to travel in space.
Katya Echazarreta was one of six people chosen to participate in a sub-orbital flight that will be staged by Blue Origin. 
Blue Origin officials say the 26 year-old Echazarreta, who has considerable experience as an electrical engineer, will serve as a citizen science astronaut on behalf of Space for Humanity.
“The news is out. I’m going to space,” she said Monday during a brief, giddy video on TikTok.
The date of the mission has yet to be set.
The crew will travel aboard New Shepard.
As her many followers on TikTok and YouTube know, Echazarreta was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, and later moved to San Diego, where she attended San Diego City College. She was named student of the year there in 2016. Echazarreta transferred to UCLA and earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering. She is finishing a Master’s program in engineering at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
Her resume also includes work as an electrical engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory where she helped support such missions as the Mars Perseverance Rover, and the upcoming Europa Clipper trip to Jupiter.
She is better known to many as the host of the YouTube series Netflix IRL and as Electric Kat on Mission Unstoppable.
Echazarreta also promotes STEM education, especially on TikTok, where she subtly cheers people on by showing herself working through engineering problems. In one post, she sat at a work table and said, “Engineering can be really frustrating at times. It can feel like no matter you love the field, sometimes it just doesn’t love you back.
“But I’ve realized something recently. I’ve started to love those moments where nothing seems to be working, because I know what comes next. The moment where I finally figure it out.”
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jimkirkachu · 2 years
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Ensign Kittycat on Mars!
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(nasa photobooth link)
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magpithy · 2 years
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Losing my shit over Perseverance's pet rock.
I want what they have
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aspaceinthecosmos · 2 months
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Haven't seen anything about Ingenuity on tumblr yet, so I guess I'll make a post about it
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Ingenuity (sometimes called Ginny) was an companion craft to Perseverance, one of the rovers currently on Mars. As opposed to any of the past rovers, however, Ingenuity was a rotorcraft intended to fly above Mars' surface.
After landing on Mars in February of 2021 and completing its first flight on April 19th, 2021, Ingenuity became the first aircraft to fly on another planet. Its original goal was only 5 flights, but it well surpassed that number, logging 72 flights with over two hours of in-air time.
On January 18th, 2024, Ingenuity lost contact with Perseverance midway through a flight, and a few days later, NASA had confirmation that the rotors were damaged, leaving Ingenuity incapable of flight.
So long, Ingenuity. You did so much <3
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Source:
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wisdomsavingthrow · 2 months
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An incredible, record-smashing, pioneering mission.
Rest well, Ginny. Thank you for all you taught us.
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kreuzaderny · 2 years
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mindblowingscience · 6 months
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An experiment that took place on Mars has shown that it's feasible to extract breathable oxygen from the thin Martian atmosphere. From its little home in the belly of NASA's Perseverance rover, the briefcase-sized Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) Experiment (MOXIE) has been repeatedly breaking apart molecules in Mars air to generate a small, but steady supply of oxygen. Now, MOXIE is getting set to retire, after a job well done. "MOXIE's impressive performance shows that it is feasible to extract oxygen from Mars' atmosphere – oxygen that could help supply breathable air or rocket propellant to future astronauts," says NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy.
Continue Reading.
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the-planet-mercury · 4 months
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EVERYONE ITS CURIOSITY'S SIXTH BIRTHDAY ON MARS EVERYONE SAY HAPPY BIRTHDAY IT LANDED ON MARS ON RISHABHA 13, 31 (AUGUST 6, 2012) TODAY IS RISHABHA 13, 37 6 LONG YEARS OF VALUABLE SCIENCE HAPPY BIRTHDAY CURIOSITY
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timesnewfishcat · 5 months
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hello there
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g4laxy-drag0n · 6 months
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Edit: if I may add something, I'm not referring to their ground control when I say Spirit and Oppy are controlled by Macbooks. I mean the actual computer brains inside the rovers - as well as those for most of the 1990s-2000s Mars missions - were the same computers that were used in Macbooks. Enjoy!
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NASA's Perseverance rover collects two samples of Martian regolith NASA's Perseverance rover snagged two new samples from the Martian surface on Dec. 2 and 6. But unlike the 15 rock cores collected to date, these newest samples came from a pile of wind-blown sand and dust similar to but smaller than a dune. Now contained in special metal collection tubes, one of these two samples will be considered for deposit on the Martian surface sometime this month as part of the Mars Sample Return campaign. Scientists want to study Martian samples with powerful lab equipment on Earth to search for signs of ancient microbial life and to better understand the processes that have shaped the surface of Mars. Most of the samples will be rock; however, researchers also want to examine regolith—broken rock and dust—not only because of what it can teach us about geological processes and the environment on Mars, but also to mitigate some of the challenges astronauts will face on the Red Planet. Regolith can affect everything from spacesuits to solar panels, so it's just as interesting to engineers as it is to scientists. As with rock cores, these latest samples were collected using a drill on the end of the rover's robotic arm. But for the regolith samples, Perseverance used a drill bit that looks like a spike with small holes on one end to gather loose material. Engineers designed the special drill bit after extensive testing with simulated regolith developed by JPL. Called Mojave Mars Simulant, it's made of volcanic rock crushed into a variety of particle sizes, from fine dust to coarse pebbles, based on images of regolith and data collected by previous Mars missions. "Everything we learn about the size, shape, and chemistry of regolith grains helps us design and test better tools for future missions," said Iona Tirona of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which leads the Perseverance mission. Tirona was the activity lead for operations to collect the recent regolith sample. "The more data we have, the more realistic our simulants can be." The challenge of dust Studying regolith up close could help engineers design future Mars missions—as well as the equipment used by future Martian astronauts. Dust and regolith can damage spacecraft and science instruments alike. Regolith can jam sensitive parts and slow down rovers on the surface. The grains could also pose unique challenges to astronauts: Lunar regolith was discovered to be sharp enough to tear microscopic holes in spacesuits during the Apollo missions to the moon. Regolith could be helpful if packed against a habitat to shield astronauts from radiation, but it also contains risks: The Martian surface contains perchlorate, a toxic chemical that could threaten the health of astronauts if large amounts were accidentally inhaled or ingested. "If we have a more permanent presence on Mars, we need to know how the dust and regolith will interact with our spacecraft and habitats," said Perseverance team member Erin Gibbons, a McGill University doctoral candidate who uses Mars regolith simulants as part of her work with the rover's rock-vaporizing laser, called SuperCam. "Some of those dust grains could be as fine as cigarette smoke, and could get into an astronaut's breathing apparatus," added Gibbons, who was previously part of a NASA program studying human-robot exploration of Mars. "We want a fuller picture of which materials would be harmful to our explorers, whether they're human or robotic." Besides answering questions about health and safety hazards, a tube of Martian regolith could inspire scientific wonder. Looking at it under a microscope would reveal a kaleidoscope of grains in different shapes and colors. Each one would be like a jigsaw puzzle piece, all of them joined together by wind and water over billions of years. "There are so many different materials mixed into Martian regolith," said Libby Hausrath of University of Nevada, Las Vegas, one of Perseverance's sample return scientists. "Each sample represents an integrated history of the planet's surface." As an expert on Earth's soils, Hausrath is most interested in finding signs of interaction between water and rock. On Earth, life is found practically everywhere there's water. The same could have been true for Mars billions of years ago, when the planet's climate was much more like Earth's.
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By Jonathan Amos, Science correspondent@BBCAmos
Nasa says its Perseverance rover has essentially completed the job it was asked to do when it landed on Mars in February 2021.
The robot's basic requirement was to survey an ancient crater lake and to collect rocks that would aid the quest to identify evidence for past life.
This primary objective had been accomplished, the mission team told a major conference in San Francisco.
The announcement was made on the 1,000th Martian day of the mission.
"It's a pretty incredible achievement and we've done an amazing amount of science," said Nasa's director of planetary science, Dr Lori Glaze.
This does not mean Perseverance is about to park up and "switch off the engine".
Plenty of challenges lie ahead.
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spacecdt · 1 year
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Landing of NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover
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promithiae · 3 months
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Eeeeeee hehehehehehe
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The seller never got back to me when I emailed them about printing the pictures so I had to do it myself, which involved a long argument with my printer. But behold! Mars rovers in my locket!
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krakenmare · 6 months
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Perseverance Rover's First Image from Mars (February 18, 2021)
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