Amazing Mars Flyover Videos Keep Getting Better and Better

How do the folks from UnmannedSpaceflight do it?!! They keep surpassing themselves with every new flyover video! We’ve posted some Mars flyover videos before, created by UMSF founder Doug Ellison. Now, colleague Adrian Lark — who has been working on creating animations and enhanced images with data from the Mars missions for several years — …

Columbia Hills Flyover 2.0; Awesome Meridiani Mosaics

About 18 months ago Doug Ellison from UnmannedSpaceflight.com created a flyover of the Columbia Hills on Mars using data from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Spirit, the Mars rover. He’s now done a 2.0 version to mark Spirit’s recent birthday — she’s been on Mars for 3 Martian years. Ellison made the skies a little …

LRO Hi-Def Lunar Flyover Movie

The folks at Goddard Space Flight Center working on the the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission have put together a flyover video from the first images taken by LRO’s cameras. Just a little appetite whetter for all the good things to come from LRO. Enjoy!

BepiColumbo Makes its Third Flyby of Mercury, Seeing the Planet's Night Side

ESA’s BepiColumbo continues its journey to Mercury by making another flyby … of Mercury! This is the third of six planned flybys of its destination planet, each of which gives the spacecraft a gravitational deceleration. Eventually, it’ll slow down enough to go into its final operational orbit. In the most recent flyby on June 19, …

“Good Night Oppy” Beautifully Illustrates the Unbreakable Bond Between Humans and our Robotic Explorers

In January 2004, NASA rovers Spirit and Opportunity (aka “Oppy”) landed in two completely different locations on Mars. Their missions were only designed to last 90 sols (approximately 90 Earth days), but they exceeded these parameters, and then some. While Spirit lasted until 2010, Opportunity lasted another astonishing eight years, when it sent its last …

Would Mark Watney Have Survived in Real Life, and What This Can Teach Us About Sending Humans to Mars

We want to send humans to Mars eventually, and while this will be both a historic and exciting journey, it could also be tragic and terrible, and we must also address the potential pitfalls and risks of such an adventure. The intent behind this is to allow fans of space exploration to consider the full …

InSight Felt the Ground Shake From a Meteorite Impact on Mars

The Mars InSight lander might be nearing the end of its life on the Red Planet, but its scientific data are still shaking up the planetary science community. That’s because it detected another Marsquake on December 24, 2021. It was a major shaker and generated surface waves that rippled across the crust of the planet. …