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NASA crashes Ebb and Flow, names a 'corner of the moon' for Sally Ride
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/GSFC/ASU /Sally Ride Science
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MIT/GSFC
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MIT
Ebb and Flow's final resting place on the moon has been named for America's first woman in space, Sally Ride, NASA/JPL announced Monday.
The formation-flying duo hit the lunar surface as planned at 2:28:51 p.m. PST (5:28:51 p.m. EST) and 2:29:21 p.m. PST (5:29:21 p.m. EST) at a speed of 3,760 mph (1.7 kilometers per second). The location of the Sally K. Ride Impact Site is on the southern face of an approximately 1.5-mile-tall (2.5-kilometer) mountain near a crater named Goldschmidt.
"Sally was all about getting the job done, whether it be in exploring space, inspiring the next generation, or helping make the GRAIL mission the resounding success it is today," said GRAIL principal investigator Maria Zuber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. "As we complete our lunar mission, we are proud we can honor Sally Ride's contributions by naming this corner of the moon after her."
NASA lets new rover go over in 2020, announces multi-year Mars program
NASA / JPL
NASA
NASA/Getty Images
Mars is ours for the forseeable future, NASA announced Tuesday with plans for a "robust" multi-year program that includes a 2020 launch date for a new robotic science rover.
With over-the-moon elation, the space agency reinforced its commitment to a Mars exploration program that meets "our nation's scientific and human exploration objectives," according to the official news release.
"The Obama administration is committed to a robust Mars exploration program," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. "With this next mission, we're ensuring America remains the world leader in the exploration of the Red Planet, while taking another significant step toward sending humans there in the 2030s."
The "planned portfolio" includes:
- Curiosity and Opportunity rovers
- Two NASA spacecraft
- Contributions to one European spacecraft currently orbiting Mars
- 2013 launch of the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) orbiter to study the Martian upper atmosphere
- Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) mission, which will take the first look into the deep interior of Mars
- Participation in ESA's 2016 and 2018 ExoMars missions, including providing "Electra" telecommunication radios to ESA's 2016 mission and a critical element of the premier astrobiology instrument on the 2018 ExoMars rover
Photos: NASA's Opportunity rover finds 'newberries' on Mars, may contain clay
NASA/JPL
NASA/JPL
NASA/JPL
NASA/JPL
Knock knock — NASA's Opportunity rover has some Martian clay news for you.
Scientists said Tuesday at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco that Opportunity — the solar-powered six-wheeler that landed on Mars in 2004 (and has far outlasted its original, three-month mission) — uncovered hints of clay minerals along the western rim of the Endeavour crater.
Steve Squyres, the mission's principal investigator at Cornell University said, "If you are a geologist studying a site like this, one of the first things you do is walk the outcrop, and that's what we've done with Opportunity," reports NASA.
Two outcrops of high interest on Matijevic Hill are "Whitewater Lake" and "Kirkwood." Whitewater Lake is light-toned material that science team members believe may contain clay.Kirkwood contains small spheres with composition, structure and distribution that differ from other iron-rich spherules, nicknamed blueberries, that Opportunity found at its landing site and throughout the Meridiani Planum area it has explored. Squyres calls the Kirkwood spheres "newberries."
No methane in 'initial sniffs' of Martian air, says NASA
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Lab demo of the measurement chamber inside the Tunable Laser Spectrometer — an atmosphere analysis instrument on NASA's Curiosity rover.
"The most sensitive measurements ever to search for methane gas on Mars" did not detect methane gas on Mars, reports NASA.
Preliminary results reveal little to no methane. Methane is of interest as a simple precursor chemical for life. On Earth, it can be produced by either biological or non-biological processes.
Officials released the test results Friday during a teleconference from Pasadena's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Scientists with the space agency are trying to figure out if Mars was ever hospitable to microbial life, and how the planet may have lost a substantial amount of original atmosphere.
Learning what happened to the Martian atmosphere will help scientists assess whether the planet ever was habitable. The present atmosphere of Mars is 100 times thinner than Earth's.
35-year-old Voyager 1 skirts solar system edge with an 8-track and 68K of memory
NASA/JPL
Voyager assembly in Hi-Bay I.
With an eight-track tape recorder and 100,000 times less memory than an iPod, Voyager 1 is celebrating its 35th birthday at the edge of the solar system.
Traipsing through a giant, turbulent, plasma bubble near the fringes, the longest-running, most-distant spacecraft in NASA's history celebrates a launch anniversary on Wednesday. After more than three decades of trekking, the craft is currently flirting with the edge of our system, poised for a precedent-setting puncture to the other side.
Scientists say the milestone is near, but a timeframe for crossing over is unknown.
Expected to be the first manmade object to touch the space between stars, Voyager 1, at more than 11 billion miles from the sun, is already in uncharted celestial territory. Voyager 2, which celebrated its anniversary two weeks ago, is approximately 9 billion miles from the sun.
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