Space and astronomy news
In 2018, Mars experienced one of its global dust storms, a phenomenon seen nowhere else. As science would have it, there were no fewer than six spacecraft in orbit around Mars at the time, and two surface rovers. This was an unprecedented opportunity to watch and study the storm.
Continue reading “Amazing View of How Dust Storms Grow on Mars”
Opportunity’s final message home is not much to look at on its own. If you’re old enough to remember film cameras, it looks like the final exposure on a roll of film, developed but partly missing. It’s a suitable epitaph for Opportunity’s mission.
Continue reading “It’s Been Exactly One Year Since Opportunity Sent This Final Message Home – on its 5,111th Martian Day”
The enduring, and maybe endearing, mystery around Mars is what happened to its water? We can say with near-certainty now, thanks to the squad of Mars rovers and orbiters, that Mars was once much wetter. In fact that planet may have had an ocean that covered a third of the surface. But what happened to it all?
As it turns out, the global dust storms that envelop Mars, and in particular the most recent one that felled the Opportunity rover, may offer an explanation.
Continue reading “The Global Dust Storm that Ended Opportunity Helped Teach us how Mars Lost its Water”
A tiny electric motor on the Curiosity rover played a role in identifying a global Martian dust storm. The storm completely enveloped the planet between May and July, 2018. It was the biggest storm since 2007.