Category Archives: Reports

InSight: Sunrise and sunset on Mars

NASA’s InSight lander captured a series of sunrise and sunset images. A camera on the spacecraft’s robotic arm snapped the photos on April 24 and 25, the 145th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. In local Mars time, the … Continue reading

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MARCI weather report, April 22-28, 2019

For the past week on Mars, numerous local-scale dust storms of varied size occurred along the southern highlands — below 50° S. latitude. Looking to the northern hemisphere, dust-lifting activity was more sporadic. A couple of arcuate (bow-shaped) dust storms … Continue reading

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Curiosity update: Confirmation of another taste of the ‘Clay-Bearing Unit,’ as good as the first?

Sols 2390-93, April 26, 2019, update by MSL scientist Lucy Thompson: We started planning in eager anticipation of the preliminary results from our downlink and whether the CheMin X-ray diffraction spectrometer received enough sample of the “Kilmarie” drill sample to … Continue reading

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THEMIS: Angustus Labyrinthus, the ‘Inca City’

THEMIS Image of the Day, May 1, 2019. Angustus Labyrinthus is a unique region near the south polar cap. The squares formed by intersecting ridges earned the feature the informal name of the Inca City when it was discovered in … Continue reading

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HiRISE: Majestic slopes and ridges

Majestic slopes and ridges. The objective of this observation is to take a closer look at recurring slope lineae-like features and confirm if they are actually present. Additionally, we previously had no HiRISE coverage of this particular spot. The sheer … Continue reading

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THEMIS: South polar outliers

THEMIS Image of the Day, April 26, 2019. This VIS image is located near the south polar cap and exhibits the same layering of ice and dust. Outliers are regions that were once part of a larger regional feature but … Continue reading

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Mars 2020 wired for sound

Engineers and technicians working on NASA’s Mars 2020 mission prepare spacecraft components for acoustic testing in the Environmental Test Facility at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The spacecraft is being tested in the same configuration it will be … Continue reading

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Curiosity: A shiny rock or two

Sol 2387, April 24, 2019. Curiosity’s Remote Micro-Imager shot two frames of a rock  — or is it two of them? — with a shiny surface. Click the image to enlarge it. Sol 2387 raw images (from all cameras).

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HiRISE: Megadunes in Hyperborei Cavi

Megadunes in Hyperborei Cavi. A cavus is an irregular steep-sided depression usually in arrays or clusters. Plus: MEGADUNES! HiRISE Picture of the Day archive. [More at links]

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THEMIS: Layers in Cavi Angusti

THEMIS Image of the Day, April 25, 2019. Cavi Angusti is located near the south polar cap and consists of large irregular steep-sided depressions termed cavi. Layering is visible within the large cavi at the top of the image. Explore … Continue reading

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