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Sols 4159-4160: A Fully Loaded First Sol
Earth planning date: Wednesday, April 17, 2024 Curiosity continues to make progress along the margin of upper Gediz Vallis ridge, investigating the broken bedrock in our workspace and acquiring images of the ridge deposit as the rover drives south. Today’s…
NASA’s Juno Gives Aerial Views of Mountain, Lava Lake on Io
Imagery from the solar-powered spacecraft provides close-ups of intriguing features on the hellish Jovian moon. Scientists on NASA’s Juno mission to Jupiter have transformed data collected during two recent flybys of Io into animations that highlight two of the Jovian…
Hubble Goes Hunting for Small Main Belt Asteroids
Like boulders, rocks, and pebbles scattered across a landscape, asteroids come in a wide range of sizes. Cataloging asteroids in space is tricky because they are faint and they don’t stop to be photographed as they zip along their orbits…
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Team Says Goodbye … for Now
The final downlink shift by the Ingenuity team was a time to reflect on a highly successful mission — and to prepare the first aircraft on another world for its new role. Engineers working on NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter assembled…
Comet Geyser: Perseverance’s 21st Rock Core
After investigating the high-standing bedrock at the Bunsen Peak workspace deep within the Margin Unit, the unique nature and composition of this rock was deemed worthy for collection of Perseverance’s 21th rock core sample, Comet Geyser! Bunsen Peak is named…
NASA’s Dragonfly Rotorcraft Mission to Saturn’s Moon Titan Confirmed
NASA has confirmed its Dragonfly rotorcraft mission to Saturn’s organic-rich moon Titan. The decision allows the mission to progress to completion of final design, followed by the construction and testing of the entire spacecraft and science instruments. “Dragonfly is a…
NASA Observations Find What Helps Heat Roots of ‘Moss’ on Sun
Did you know the Sun has moss? Due to its resemblance to the earthly plants, scientists have named a small-scale, bright, patchy structure made of plasma in the solar atmosphere “moss.” This moss, which was first identified in 1999 by…
NASA Goddard to Build Quake Detector for Artemis III Moon Landing
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, will build a moonquake detector for astronauts to deploy on the Moon in 2026 during the Artemis III mission, which will return astronauts to the lunar surface for the first time in…
The next full Moon is the Pink Moon, Sprouting Grass Moon, Egg Moon, Fish Moon, the Pesach or Passover Moon
The next full Moon will be Tuesday evening, April 23, 2024, The Moon will appear full for about 3 days around this time, from Monday morning to Thursday morning.
Sols 4157-4158: What is That??
Earth planning date: Monday, April 15, 2024 On most sols of planning, the science team does their best to balance collecting new observations of the “typical” with the “unusual.” The dividing line between those is subjective, but informed by the…