The Mars Rover Curiosity's robotic arm in the position in which was blocked after the short circuit suffered on February 27, 2015 (Photo NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)

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NASA has confirmed that the Mars Rover Curiosity has returned to work after the problem due to a transient short circuit that happened in late February that convinced mission control to halt its activity. In particular, the robotic arm that that was blocked was finally able to deposit the sample of pulverized rock within Curiosity to proceed to its analysis.

The Mars Rover Curiosity’s protection system blocked its activity on February 27, or sol – Martian day – 911 of its mission. NASA’s Curiosity team left it stationary to avoid the risk that the problem gets aggravated while it was diagnosed.

Artistic concept of the Jupiter space tug and the Exoliner cargo module with the service robotic arm near the International Space Station (Image courtesy Lockheed Martin. All rights reserved)

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Lockheed Martin has announced plans of its own private spaceship that will be among the contenders for the next contract for cargo supply to the International Space Station for NASA called Commercial Resupply Services-2 (SRC-2). The company proposes a solution more sophisticated than its competitors’ because it’s not simply a cargo spaceship but a combination of a reusable space tug, called Jupiter, and a cargo module called Exoliner.

Hubble Space Telescope images of Ganymede's aurorae colored blue overlaid on a Galileo space probe image of the moon (Image NASA/ESA)

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The Hubble Space Telescope has been used to study Ganymede, the largest Jupiter’s moon, and in particular its aurorae. Analyzing their characteristics, it was possible to get the best clues found so far of the existence of a Ganymede underground ocean of liquid salt water. This ocean may contain more water than it exists on the surface of the Earth.

Artistic cutaway of Saturn's moon Enceladus that shows hydrothermal activity (Image NASA/JPL)

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An article just published in the journal “Nature” shows a research based on the detections carried out by NASA’s Cassini space probe. Among other information provided by the mission there’s also evidence that on Enceladus, one of Saturn’s moons, there are signs of the presence of hydrothermal vents. This means that there are waters heated by geothermal energy similar to those existing on Earth, where the presence of various microorganisms abounds, particularly those known as extremophiles.