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JPL

Soviet Lander Spotted by Mars Orbiter

April 11, 2013

Want to stay on top of all the space news? Follow @universetoday on Twitter On May 28, 1971, the Soviet Union launched the Mars 3 mission which, like its previously-launched and ill-fated sibling Mars 2, consisted of an orbiter and lander destined for the Red Planet. Just over six months later on December 2, 1971, [...]

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More Evidence That Mars Lost Its Atmosphere

April 8, 2013

Although today Mars’ atmosphere is sparse and thin — barely 1% the density of Earth’s at sea level — scientists don’t believe that was always the case. The Red Planet likely had a much denser atmosphere similar to ours, long, long ago. So… what happened to it? NASA’s Curiosity rover has now found strong evidence [...]

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Planck’s Cosmic Map Reveals Universe Older, Expanding More Slowly

March 21, 2013

Like archaeologists sifting through the dust of ancient civilizations, scientists with the ESA Planck mission today showed a map of the oldest light in the Universe. The first cosmology results of the mission suggest our Universe is slightly older and expanding more slowly than previously thought. Planck’s new estimate for the age of the Universe [...]

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Curiosity Once Again in Safe Mode – If Only Briefly

March 19, 2013

Not even two and a half weeks after a memory glitch that sent NASA’s Curiosity rover into a safe mode on Feb. 27, the robotic Mars explorer once again went into standby status as the result of a software discrepancy — although mission engineers diagnosed the new problem quickly and anticipate having the rover out [...]

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Historic First Use of Drill on Mars Set for Jan. 31 – Curiosity’s Sol 174

January 31, 2013

Image caption: Curiosity will conduct Historic 1st drilling into Martian rock at this spot where the robotic arm is pressing down onto the Red Planet’s surface at the John Klein outcrop of veined hydrated minerals. The Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) is in contact with the ground. This panoramic photo mosaic of Navcam camera images [...]

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