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Curiosity has been exploring Mars for nearly 12 years, and the diligent robot has just made it to its next stop. As soon as it arrived at Gediz Vallis, NASA’s Mars rover captured the rocky terrain of the winding channel that may have been carved by an ancient river that once flowed on Mars. Why Tilda Swinton is Drawn to Certain Characters NASA recently revealed the gorgeous black and white, 360-degree panorama of Gediz Vallis, which was captured by the Curiosity rover on February 3 using one of its navigation cameras. The Martian rover will spend months exploring the channel, gathering clues about Mars’ potentially warmer, water-filled past. Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech The panorama shows the “dark sand that fills one side of the channel and a debris pile rising just behind the sand,” NASA wrote. “In the opposite direction is the steep slope that Curiosity climbed to reach this area.” Scientists believe Mars may have had bodies of water flowing across its surface billions of years ago. The Gediz Vallis channel is carved into the underlying bedrock, and is filled with boulders and other debris. The team behind the Curiosity mission are looking to gather clues as to how the channel formed, whether it was carved by an ancient river, wind, or dry avalanches. Learning about Gediz Vallis not only provides a look into Mars’ ancient history and the possibility of it being once habitable, but could also suggest that water on Mars may have come and gone in phases, as opposed to gradually disappearing as the planet became more dry. The Curiosity rover has been trekking the foothills of Mount Sharp since 2014, exploring layers in the lower part of the Martian mountain which formed over millions of years amid a changing climate on Mars. A lower part of those foothills included a layer rich in clay minerals, which formed as a result of a lot of water interacting with rock. As Curiosity moves across Gediz Vallis, this region of Mars is enriched with sulfates, or salty minerals that often form as water evaporates. That means the Gediz Vallis channel formed long after Mount Sharp. The debris and boulders within the channel may have also came from high up on the mountain, according to NASA. “If the channel or the debris pile were formed by liquid water, that’s really interesting,” Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity’s project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a statement. “It would mean that fairly late in the story of Mount Sharp – after a long dry period – water came back, and in a big way.” More: Things You Didn’t Know About NASA’s Mars Rovers Source link By Nakisisa George

NASA's Curiosity rover has begun exploring a new region of Mars, one that could reveal more about when liquid water disappeared once and for all from the Red Planet's surface. Billions of years ago, Mars was much wetter and probably warmer than it is today. Curiosity is getting a new look into that more Earth-like past as it drives along and eventually crosses the Gediz Vallis channel, a winding, snake-like feature that—from space, at least—appears to have been carved by an ancient river. That possibility has scientists intrigued. The rover team is searching for evidence that would confirm how the channel was carved into the underlying bedrock. The formation's sides are steep enough that the team doesn't think the channel was made by wind. However, debris flows (rapid, wet landslides) or a river carrying rocks and sediment could have had enough energy to chisel into the bedrock. After the channel formed, it was filled with boulders and other debris. Scientists are also eager to learn whether this material was transported by debris flows or dry avalanches. Since 2014, Curiosity has been ascending the foothills of Mount Sharp, which stands 3 miles (5 kilometers) above the floor of Gale Crater. The layers in this lower part of the mountain formed over millions of years amid a changing Martian climate, providing scientists with a way to study how the presence of both water and the chemical ingredients required for life changed over time. For example, a lower part of those foothills included a layer rich in clay minerals where a lot of water once interacted with rock. Now the rover is exploring a layer enriched with sulfates—salty minerals that often form as water evaporates. #NASA #Mars #Curiosity The steep path NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover took to reach Gediz Vallis channel is indicated in yellow in this visualization made with orbital data. At lower right is the point where the rover veered off to get an up-close look at a ridge formed long ago by debris flows from higher up on Mount Sharp. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/UC Berkeley)

https://buff.ly/3UQXDkm Images from the JunoCam visible-light camera aboard NASA's Juno spacecraft supports the theory that the icy crust at the north and south poles of Jupiter's moon Europa is not where it used to be. Another high-resolution picture of the icy moon, by the spacecraft's Stellar Reference Unit (SRU), reveals signs of possible plume activity and an area of ice shell disruption where brine may have recently bubbled to the surface. The JunoCam results recently appeared in the Planetary Science Journal and the SRU results in the journal JGR Planets. On Sept. 29, 2022, Juno made its closest flyby of Europa, coming within 220 miles (355 kilometers) of the moon's frozen surface. The four pictures taken by JunoCam and one by the SRU are the first high-resolution images of Europa since Galileo's last flyby in 2000.

[Voyager 1 Is Back Online! NASA's Most Distant Spacecraft Returns Data From All 4 Instruments] All right, everyone — we can all breathe a sigh of relief. NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft is fully operational once more, with all four science instruments returning usable data to Earth. The problems began in November 2023, when Voyager 1 lost its ability to "speak" with us. More specifically, it started sending to Earth unintelligible data instead of its normal 0s and 1s of binary code. Of course, Voyager 1 is 46 years old — ancient for a spacecraft — so it wasn't entirely a surprise that its health might be waning. And that's not to mention that it's in entirely uncharted interstellar territory, some 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) from Earth. Voyager 1's dogged team was determined to not only figure out what went wrong, but also to fix the problem. And they've succeeded! Controllers identified where the issue was located: the flight data subsystem (FDS), used to "package" data to be sent to Earth. Further sleuthing revealed the exact chip causing the problem, which allowed them to find a workaround. After the team relocated the code to a new location in the FDS, Voyager 1 finally sent back intelligible data on April 20, 2024 — but only from two of its four science instruments. Now, just two months later, Voyager 1's remaining two science instruments are back up and running, communicating effectively with mission control on Earth. Even if Voyager 1 had gone dark for good, however, the mission would still have been a wild success. But Voyager 1 is on an unstoppable path. Continuing its journey away from Earth, the spacecraft entered interstellar space in 2012, returning crucial data about this mysterious realm. All right, everyone — we can all breathe a sigh of relief. NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft is fully operational once more, with all four science instruments returning usable data to Earth. The problems began in November 2023, when Voyager 1 lost its ability to "speak" with us. And that's not to mention that it's in entirely uncharted interstellar territory, some 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) from Earth. And they've succeeded! Controllers identified where the issue was located: the flight data subsystem (FDS), used to "package" data to be sent to Earth. Further sleuthing revealed the exact chip causing the problem, which allowed them to find a workaround. Now, just two months later, Voyager 1's remaining two science instruments are back up and running, communicating effectively with mission control on Earth. Even if Voyager 1 had gone dark for good, however, the mission would still have been a wild success. But Voyager 1 is on an unstoppable path. Continuing its journey away from Earth, the spacecraft entered interstellar space in 2012, returning crucial data about this mysterious realm. Source: https://lnkd.in/eAHcr7Mk #galaxyaerosgh #space #spaceexploration #SpaceNews

These false-colour images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft chronicle a day in the life of a huge storm that developed from a small spot that appeared 12 weeks earlier in Saturn's northern mid-latitudes. The storm encircles the planet - whose circumference at these latitudes is 300,000 kilometres. From north to south, it covers a distance of about 15,000 kilometres, which is one-third of the way around the Earth. It encompasses an area of 4 billion square kilometres, or eight times the surface area of Earth. This storm is about 500 times the area of the biggest of the southern hemisphere storms observed by Cassini. The highest clouds in the image are probably around 100 millibars pressure, 100 kilometres above the regular undisturbed clouds. These false colors show clouds at different altitudes. Clouds that appear blue here are the highest and are semitransparent, or optically thin. Those that are yellow and white are optically thick clouds at high altitudes. Those shown green are intermediate clouds. Red and brown colors are clouds at low altitude unobscured by high clouds, and the deep blue color is a thin haze with no clouds below. The base of the clouds, where lightning is generated, is probably in the water cloud layer of Saturn's atmosphere. The storm clouds are likely made out of water ice covered by crystallized ammonia. Taken about 11 hours -- or one Saturn day -- apart, the two mosaics in the lower half of this image product consist of 84 images each. The mosaic in the middle was taken earlier than the mosaic at the bottom. Both mosaics were captured on Feb. 26, 2011, and each of the two batches of images was taken over about 4.5 hours. Two enlargements from the earlier, middle mosaic are shown at the top of this product. The white lines below the middle mosaic identify those parts of the mosaic that were enlarged for these close-up views. The enlargement on the top left shows the head of the storm, and that on the top right shows the turbulent middle of the storm. Both of the long mosaics cover an area ranging from about 30 degrees north latitude to 51 degrees north latitude. The views stretch from about 138 degrees west longitude on the left to 347 degrees west longitude on the right, passing through 360/0 degrees west longitude near the far right of the mosaics. NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI

🚀 What is Jupitershine?   NASA's Juno spacecraft has just treated us to the sharpest images of Jupiter's moon Io in over two decades! 🛰️🌌 Juno made its closest flybys of Io in more than 20 years, capturing the moon's night side aglow with "Jupitershine" – sunlight reflected from Jupiter. The onboard "JunoCam" instrument delivered stunning high-resolution images, and guess what? The raw data is up for grabs, inviting you to dive in, process, enhance, and explore.   On Dec. 30, 2023, Juno came within a mere 930 miles of Io's surface, revealing incredible details like an active plume, towering mountain peaks casting distinct shadows, and lava lakes complete with what looks like islands. The recent ultra-close flyby over the southern hemisphere adds a fresh perspective, providing a lot to unpack in these photos.   Here's where it gets exciting – the JunoCam scientists want YOUR help in unraveling the mysteries within these images. Past volunteers have seen their processed images featured in scientific publications and press releases. credit : phys.org Credit: https://lnkd.in/eXQGfiKp Dive into the captivating pages of #TheBookOfOdd, where the philosophies of #Metaphysics, #Panpsychism, and #Cosmopsychism intertwines with the profound experience of #RightNow. Embark on a transformative journey, exploring the trails of #Mindfulness and #Optimism that reveal the chapters of your personal narrative of #Curiosity. Immerse yourself in the magnificence of the present moment, and celebrate today's distinctive chapter, where the beauty unfolds on every page. 📖Ready to join the cosmic detective squad?

Wild Duck Star Cluster: Messier 11 in Scutum | Hubble FriendsofNASA.org | High-res image: https://lnkd.in/gTXaBh3H This star-studded image shows us a portion of Messier 11, an open star cluster in the southern constellation of Scutum (The Shield). Messier 11 is also known as the Wild Duck Cluster, as its brightest stars form a “V” shape that somewhat resembles a flock of ducks in flight. Distance: 6,000 light years Messier 11 is one of the richest and most compact open clusters currently known. By investigating the brightest, hottest main sequence stars in the cluster astronomers estimate that it formed roughly 220 million years ago. Open clusters tend to contain fewer and younger stars than their more compact globular cousins, and Messier 11 is no exception. At its center, lie many blue stars, the hottest and youngest of the cluster’s few thousand stellar residents. The lifespans of open clusters are also relatively short compared to those of globular ones; stars in open clusters are spread further apart and are thus not as strongly bound to each other by gravity, causing them to be more easily and quickly drawn away by stronger gravitational forces. As a result Messier 11 is likely to disperse in a few million years as its members are ejected one by one, pulled away by other celestial objects in the vicinity. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, P. Dobbie et al. Release Date: March 25, 2019 ESA Hubble and Webb Space Telescopes NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Space Telescope Science Institute American Astronomical Society (AAS) European Astronomical Society Royal Astronomical Society The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada National Science Teaching Association U.S. Department of Education Patrick CUVELIER Pere Mir Olga Dragunova Jocelyne Hericher #NASA #ESA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Hubble #Stars #StarClusters #OpenStarClusters #Messier11 #WildDuckCluster #Scutum #Constellation #Cosmos #Universe #HST #HubbleSpaceTelescope #GSFC #STScI #UnitedStates #Europe #STEM #Education

Aligned Protostellar Outflows Imaged for First Time | James Webb Space Telescope FriendsofNASA.org: For the first time, a phenomenon astronomers have long hoped to image directly has been captured by the NASA/European Space Agency/Canadian Space Agency James Webb Space Telescope’s Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam). In this image of the Serpens Nebula, the discovery lies in the northern area of this young, nearby star-forming region. Astronomers have found an intriguing group of protostellar outflows, formed when jets of gas spewing from newborn stars collide with nearby gas and dust at high speeds. Typically these objects have a variety of orientations within one region. Here, however, they are all slanted in the same direction, to the same degree, like sleet pouring down during a storm. The discovery of these aligned objects, made possible only by Webb’s exquisite spatial resolution and sensitivity at near-infrared wavelengths, is providing information about the fundamentals of how stars are born. The Serpens Nebula, located 1,300 light-years from Earth, is home to a particularly dense cluster of newly forming stars (about 100,000 years old), where a number will eventually grow to the mass of our Sun. Webb’s image of this nebula revealed a grouping of aligned protostellar outflows (seen in the top left). The jets are identified by bright clumpy streaks that appear red. These are shock waves caused when the jet hits the surrounding gas and dust. Video Credits: Directed by: Bethany Downer and Nico Bartmann Editing: Nico Bartmann Written by: Bethany Downer Footage: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, K. Pontoppidan (NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory), J. Green (Space Telescope Science Institute) Duration: 2 minutes Release Date: June 20, 2024 #NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Nebulae #Nebula #SerpensNebula #Stars #Jets #ProtostellarOutflows #Serpens #Constellation #Universe #JamesWebb #SpaceTelescope #JWST #Infrared #UnfoldTheUniverse #ESA #CSA #GSFC #STSc #UnitedStates #STEM #Education #HD #Video

[NASA's Exoplanet Hunter TESS Spots A Record-Breaking 3-Star System] Using NASA's exoplanet-hunting spacecraft, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), scientists have spotted a record-breaking triple-star system so tightly bound that it could fit comfortably between the sun and its closest planet, Mercury. The system, designated TIC 290061484 contains twin stars that race around each other once every 1.8 Earth days as well as a third star that orbits this pair once every 25 Earth days. This triple star system's super-tight orbit, located just under 5,000 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus, the swan, makes it a record-breaker. The previous record-holder for the tightest three-star system orbit is Lamba Tauri, which set the record in 1956 with its third star taking 33 days to orbit its inner twin stars. The discovery team included citizen scientists who met as part of the now-closed Planet Hunters project, which ran from 2010 to 2013. The amateurs joined with professional astronomers to form the Visual Survey Group collaboration, which has been operating for a decade. The team thinks the star system TIC 290061484 is highly stable because the stars orbit each other in nearly the same plane. If the stars' orbits were tilted in different directions, their gravitational influences would disrupt their orbits, making the system unstable. This stability won't last forever, though — maybe a few million years. Though that's a long time to us, it's a blink of an eye in our 13.8 billion-year-old cosmos. And as Visual Survey Group team member Saul Rappaport, a physics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), reminds us, referring to the fate of the TIC 290061484 stars: "No one lives here." As the twin stars at the heart of this triple star system age, they will expand outward and ultimately merge. This will trigger a massive supernova explosion in around 20 to 40 million years. The team spotted the record-breaking triple star system because of strobing starlight caused by the stars crossing in front of each other, as seen from our position on Earth. The team turned to machine learning to analyze vast amounts of data from TESS to spot a pattern indicating these eclipses. They then called upon the aid of citizen scientists to further filter this data to spot interesting signals. The team thinks many more systems like this are likely to be spread across the Milky Way, waiting to be discovered. Some may even exhibit shorter orbits than the stars of the TIC 290061484 system. Current technology may be insufficient to spot these tightly bound triple stars, but help is on the way. Set to launch no earlier than May 2027, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, or just "Roman," will provide vastly more detailed images of space than those gathered by TESS. Source: https://lnkd.in/eHZS3zgf #galaxyaerosgh #space #spaceexploration #SpaceNews

Aligned Protostellar Outflows Imaged for First Time | James Webb Space Telescope FriendsofNASA.org: For the first time, a phenomenon astronomers have long hoped to image directly has been captured by the NASA/European Space Agency/Canadian Space Agency James Webb Space Telescope’s Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam). In this image of the Serpens Nebula, the discovery lies in the northern area of this young, nearby star-forming region. Astronomers have found an intriguing group of protostellar outflows, formed when jets of gas spewing from newborn stars collide with nearby gas and dust at high speeds. Typically these objects have a variety of orientations within one region. Here, however, they are all slanted in the same direction, to the same degree, like sleet pouring down during a storm. The discovery of these aligned objects, made possible only by Webb’s exquisite spatial resolution and sensitivity at near-infrared wavelengths, is providing information about the fundamentals of how stars are born. The Serpens Nebula, located 1,300 light-years from Earth, is home to a particularly dense cluster of newly forming stars (about 100,000 years old), where a number will eventually grow to the mass of our Sun. Webb’s image of this nebula revealed a grouping of aligned protostellar outflows (seen in the top left). The jets are identified by bright clumpy streaks that appear red. These are shock waves caused when the jet hits the surrounding gas and dust. Video Credits: Directed by: Bethany Downer and Nico Bartmann Editing: Nico Bartmann Written by: Bethany Downer Footage: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, K. Pontoppidan (NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory), J. Green (Space Telescope Science Institute) Duration: 2 minutes Release Date: June 20, 2024 #NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Nebulae #Nebula #SerpensNebula #Stars #Jets #ProtostellarOutflows #Serpens #Constellation #Universe #JamesWebb #SpaceTelescope #JWST #Infrared #UnfoldTheUniverse #ESA #CSA #GSFC #STSc #UnitedStates #STEM #Education #HD #Video