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mars rover

Spirit, the Mars Rover, Left to Die Before Its Time

The brave, unflagging Mars rover Spirit, who has lived on the Red Planet for almost four years, has been given a death sentence by the U.S. government. Right now, the little robot is resting on a sunny slope, waiting out the winter and preparing to do more tests on the Martian atmosphere. But now it looks like Spirit has rolled on its six wheels and done science experiments for the very last time. The U.S. government has forced NASA, this country's national space agency, to cut its budget by 4 million dollars. And that means only one rover, Opportunity, will survive. To say that this is a tragedy is an understatement. More »

7:00 AM on Tue Mar 25 2008
By Annalee Newitz
2,121 views, 37 comments

Latest by technobee: How about a pay for use service? Let people pay to drive the rover around and complete research tasks. more »

space porn

Titan Rises Behind Saturn's Rings

Haze-covered Titan, a moon of Saturn with a dense, cloudy atmosphere, was mapped extensively by the recent Cassini-Huygens space probe. The probe sent back beautiful space vistas like this one, whereTitan is the glowing globe behind Saturn's rings, and tiny moon Epimetheus is the small body you see floating above it. The space probe also gave up-close view of the surface of this moon, perhaps most famous for being the place where the aliens of 2001 have left a second monolith. What you may not have known is that the surface of Titan is ridged with sand dunes. Want to see them? More »

7:00 AM on Tue Feb 26 2008
By Annalee Newitz
1,969 views, 15 comments

Latest by Gopherit: Surface wind speeds on Titan are on the order of a meter per second (around 4 miles per hour) on a breezy day. That dunes form at all is pretty amazing. That there is eroded material on a more »

space porn

Sulfuric Acid Floods Created Martian "Grand Canyon"

Unusual fan-shaped features cut into the Martian surface were caused by sulfuric acid "water" exploding from underground and sweeping across the surface of the planet. Yesterday a team of European and US scientists announced this finding, which is based on satellite data from a European Space Agency satellite in orbit around the Red Planet. Want to see the gullies dug by the sulfuric acid up close? More »

7:00 AM on Thu Feb 21 2008
By Annalee Newitz
1,367 views, 9 comments

Latest by Gopherit: there's still the big question as to where all the water came from? Though there's been lots of speculation about seas, the jury is still out, and rain and snow should have caused far more erosion of older terrain more »