Category: Planetary science

NASA’s Perseverance Rover Scientists Find Intriguing Mars Rock

NASA’s Perseverance Rover Scientists Find Intriguing Mars Rock

In one scenario the Perseverance science team is considering, Cheyava Falls was initially deposited as mud with organic compounds mixed in that eventually cemented into rock. Later, a second episode of fluid flow penetrated fissures in the rock, enabling mineral deposits that created the large white calcium sulfate veins seen today and resulting in the…

Here’s How Curiosity’s Sky Crane Changed the Way NASA Explores

Here’s How Curiosity’s Sky Crane Changed the Way NASA Explores

Twelve years ago, NASA landed its six-wheeled science lab using a daring new technology that lowers the rover using a robotic jetpack. NASA’s Curiosity rover mission is celebrating a dozen years on the Red Planet, where the six-wheeled scientist continues to make big discoveries as it inches up the foothills of a Martian mountain. Just…

How the planetary systems were born

How the planetary systems were born

Our solar system began to form about 4.6 billion years ago. Astronomers think small rocky and icy grains within the solar nebula began sticking together, growing into even larger objects. Although the process remains poorly understood, solid objects miles or more across eventually populated the disk. Astronomers call these bodies planetesimals. Within a million years…

Mars, the red planet: Facts and information

Mars, the red planet: Facts and information

Once upon a time, though, wind and water flowed across the red planet. Robotic rovers have found clear evidence that billions of years ago, lakes and rivers of liquid water coursed across the red...