Landers / Rovers

An independent confirmation of a methane peak on Mars

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An article published in the journal “Nature Geoscience” reports an independent confirmation of the detection of a methane peak on the planet Mars, east of Gale Crater, where NASA’s Mars Rover Curiosity is operating and detected the presence of methane. However, a team of researchers led by Marco Giuranna of the Italian National Astrophysics Institute in Rome used measurements of ESA’s Mars Express space probe’s PFS instrument to find methane. Independent detections carried out in orbit and on the ground with very different instruments are crucial in this research because methane can be produced by biological processes but also by geological processes.

The InSight lander seen by the TGO (Image ESA/Roscosmos/CaSSIS, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO)

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ESA has published a series of photos taken by its TGO space probe’s CaSSIS camera, part of the ExoMars mission run together with the Russian space agency Roscosmos. CaSSIS found NASA’s InSight lander on the surface of Mars along with its heat shield, the back shell that protected it during the descent and its parachute. In the course of its mission, CaSSIS also captured extraordinary images of various areas of the red planet showing the great potential to help researchers in their studies.

The Beresheet lander blasting off atop a Falcon 9 rocket (Image courtesy SpaceX)

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A few hours ago a Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from the Cape Canaveral base with the telecommunications satellite PSN 6 and as secondary payloads the S5 military satellite and SpaceIL’s Beresheet Moon lander. After almost 35 minutes, Beresheet separated from the rocket’s last stage of the rocket to begin the series of maneuvers that will slowly extend its orbit to bring it to the area of ​​influence of the Moon, where it’s to land around April 11.

The Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity's shadow (Image NASA/JPL-Caltech)

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NASA announced the end of the existing possibilities to re-establish contacts with its Mars Rover Opportunity and consequently declared the end of its mission. Oppy, as it’s affectionately called, interrupted communications after June 10, 2018 following the global storm that covered the planet Mars with a blanket of dust that prevented it from obtaining energy from its solar panels. This extraordinary mission ends in this sad way because caused by an extrnal cause after over 15 Earth’s years in which it collected a wealth of information on Mars.

Mars Rover Curiosity and the Apollo 17's Moon Rover (Image NASA/JPL-Caltech)

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An article published in the journal “Science” reports a clever use of the Mars Rover Curiosity’s accelerometers and gyroscopes to estimate the density of rocks under Gale Crater. A team of scientists examined the data collected over the years by those instruments to evaluate the gravity force where Curiosity passed, obtaining lower than expected measurements. This suggests that in that area the rocks are very porous and less compact than scientists thought.