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Carrel crater (15.6 km in diameter) is located near the center of Mare Tranquillitatis. On the north wall of this crater, you can find several eye-catching flow features, starting from near the top of the wall, merged together on the way down to the bottom, and finally deposited in a local topographic depression. The opening image highlights the infilled depression. Is this fill composed of solidified impact melt? Or simply a granular flow that originated by a slope failure? Which do you think? <br /><br /> The large incidence angle (69°, measured from vertical) of this image shows distinct relief of these flow features. The materials dumped in the depression show a flat surface where half is covered by gravel or rubble. The shadows along the left edge of this deposit give depth and imply a certain thickness, and no cracks or ridges are recognizable on the deposit surface. Typically impact melt flows exhibit viscous flow features (e.g. round distal edges, pressure ridges and levees and surface cracks. Not all these features are found in this image. <br /><br /> Granular flows normally spread out in the final deposit, making thin distal edges. But sometimes they form thick round shapes or have levees along the flow path. Those are rather similar to the features observed in the opening image, implying that these flows and the deposit might be formed by granular flows, but it is not easy to conclude due to its enigmatic shape.
Melt or Rubble?
04.02.2013
This illustration schematically shows where the Shallow Radar instrument on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter detected flood channels that had been buried by lava flows in the Elysium Planitia region of Mars. <br /><br /> Marte Vallis consists of multiple perched channels formed around streamlined islands. These channels feed a deeper and wider main channel. <br /><br /> In this illustration, the surface has been elevated, and scaled by a factor of one to 100 for clarity. The color scale represents the elevation of the buried channels relative to a Martian datum, or reference elevation. The reason the values are negative is because the elevation of the surface of Mars in this region is also a negative -- below average global elevation. <br /><br /> SHARAD was provided by the Italian Space Agency. Its operations are led by Sapienza University of Rome, and its data are analyzed by a joint U.S.-Italian science team. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft. <br /><br /> Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Sapienza University of Rome/Smithsonian Institution/USGS
Visualization of Buried Marte Vallis Channels
03.07.2013
”This is the first time anyone has achieved one-way laser communication at planetary distances,” says LOLA's principal investigator, David Smith of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. ”In the near future, this type of simple laser communication might serve as a backup for the radio communication that satellites use. In the more distant future, it may allow communication at higher data rates than present radio links can provide.” <br /><br /> Typically, satellites that go beyond Earth orbit use radio waves for tracking and communication. LRO is the only satellite in orbit around a body other than Earth to be tracked by laser as well. <br /><br /> ”Because LRO is already set up to receive laser signals through the LOLA instrument, we had a unique opportunity to demonstrate one-way laser communication with a distant satellite,” says Xiaoli Sun, a LOLA scientist at NASA Goddard and lead author of the Optics Express paper, posted online today, that describes the work. <br /><br /> Precise timing was the key to transmitting the image. Sun and colleagues divided the Mona Lisa image into an array of 152 pixels by 200 pixels. Every pixel was converted into a shade of gray, represented by a number between zero and 4,095. Each pixel was transmitted by a laser pulse, with the pulse being fired in one of 4,096 possible time slots during a brief time window allotted for laser tracking. The complete image was transmitted at a data rate of about 300 bits per second. <br /><br /> Turbulence in Earth's atmosphere introduced transmission errors even when the sky was clear. To overcome these effects, Sun and colleagues employed Reed-Solomon coding, which is the same type of error-correction code commonly used in CDs and DVDs. The experiments also provided statistics on the signal fluctuations due to Earth's atmosphere.
First demonstration of laser communication with a satellite at the Moon
03.04.2013
At the center of this image from NASA's Curiosity rover is the hole in a rock called ”John Klein” where the rover conducted its first sample drilling on Mars. The drilling took place on Feb. 8, 2013, or Sol 182, Curiosity's 182nd Martian day of operations. Several preparatory activities with the drill preceded this operation, including a test that produced the shallower hole on the right two days earlier, but the deeper hole resulted from the first use of the drill for rock sample collection. <br /><br /> The image was obtained by Curiosity's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on Sol 182. The sample-collection hole is 0.63 inch (1.6 centimeters) in diameter and 2.5 inches (6.4 centimeters) deep. The ”mini drill” test hole near it is the same diameter, with a depth of 0.8 inch (2 centimeters). <br /><br /> Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Curiosity's First Sample Drilling
02.14.2013
NASA's Mars Curiosity rover has used its full array of instruments to analyze Martian soil for the first time, and found a complex chemistry within the Martian soil. Water and sulfur and chlorine-containing substances, among other ingredients, showed up in samples Curiosity's arm delivered to an analytical laboratory inside the rover. <br /><br /> Detection of the substances during this early phase of the mission demonstrates the laboratory's capability to analyze diverse soil and rock samples over the next two years. Scientists also have been verifying the capabilities of the rover's instruments. <br /><br /> Curiosity is the first Mars rover able to scoop soil into analytical instruments. The specific soil sample came from a drift of windblown dust and sand called ”Rocknest.” The site lies in a relatively flat part of Gale Crater still miles away from the rover's main destination on the slope of a mountain called Mount Sharp. The rover's laboratory includes the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) suite and the Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument. SAM used three methods to analyze gases given off from the dusty sand when it was heated in a tiny oven. One class of substances SAM checks for is organic compounds -- carbon-containing chemicals that can be ingredients for life. <br /><br /> Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Curiosity Fully Analyzes First Soil Samples
12.28.2012
This map shows the gravity field of the moon as measured by NASA's GRAIL mission. The viewing perspective, known as a Mercator projection, shows the far side of the moon in the center and the nearside (as viewed from Earth) at either side. <br /><br /> Units are milliGalileos where 1 Galileo is 1 centimeter per second squared. Reds correspond to mass excesses which create areas of higher local gravity, and blues correspond to mass deficits which create areas of lower local gravity. <br /><br /> Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/GSFC/MIT
GRAIL's Gravity Field of the Moon
12.27.2012
Shown in red are areas of Mercury’s north polar region that are in shadow in all images acquired by MESSENGER to date. Image coverage, and mapping of shadows, is incomplete near the pole. The polar deposits imaged by Earth-based radar are in yellow (from Image 2.1), and the background image is the mosaic of MESSENGER images from Image 2.2. This comparison indicates that all of the polar deposits imaged by Earth-based radar are located in areas of persistent shadow as documented by MESSENGER images. <br /><br /> Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington/National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center, Arecibo Observatory
Mercury's Permanently Shadowed Polar Craters
12.13.2012
This image shows a ”bite mark” where NASA's Curiosity rover scooped up some Martian soil. The first scoop sample was taken from the ”Rocknest” patch of dust and sand on Oct. 7, 2012, the 61st sol, or Martian day, of operations. A third scoop sample was collected on Oct. 15, or Sol 69, and deposited into the Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument on Oct. 17, or Sol 71. <br /><br /> This image was taken by Curiosity's Mast Camera. Scientists enhanced the color in this version to show the Martian scene as it would appear under lighting conditions on Earth, which helps in analyzing the terrain. <br /><br /> During the two-year prime mission of the Mars Science Laboratory Project, researchers are using Curiosity's 10 instruments to investigate whether areas in Gale Crater ever offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life. <br /><br /> Image Credit: NASA
One Giant Scoop for Mankind
11.01.2012
                                                                                                                                                                                         
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  • Last Updated: 05/21/2013