New impact crater (i.e. my new wallpaper)

Mars craterThis amazing image is a crater on Mars taken by a high resolution camera, a High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera to be precise. NASA released it this week, although a space rock caused this crater between July 2010 and May 2012 when they were imaging the site.

The crater is 30 metres in diameter and the resulting explosion threw debris as far as 15 kilometres away.

Visit this site if you’d like it to be your new wallpaper too.

Image from: The University of Arizona

Curiosity lands on Mars

Curiosity (XKCD comic for August 6, 2012), http://xkcd.com/1091/NASA successfully landed their Curiosity rover on Mars last night/early this morning (depending on your earthly location) and Curiosity is already sending back pictures. I am now following Curiosity on Twitter!

You can find out more about the mission from NASA and JPL.

Previously: Curiosity Rover to discover whether Mars was once habitable

Image: XKCD comic Curiosity (August 6, 2012) by Randall Munroe

Curiosity Rover to discover whether Mars was once habitable

NASA’s new mobile Mars Science Laboratory, also known as the Curiosity Rover, will be launched on August 5th to study the rocks, soil, and atmosphere on Mars’ Gale Crater for signs of historical and current habitable environments.  A habitable environment contains water, energy, and carbon to support life.  Past missions have discovered the limited presence of water and energy on Mars, but none, so far, have found carbon in a form that can sustain life.

Curiosity’s purpose is to determine how to conduct a search for carbon, as well as find carbon.  The former will assist planetary scientists in further research, since they are uncertain about how to probe rock strata for biosignatures, whether on Earth or on Mars.

This month’s issue of Scientific American provides an overview of Curiosity’s mission and a step-by-step description of its landing sequence.

Image from Christopher Lotito