Mars – Page 22 – Astronomy Now

Opportunity rover snaps photo of Martian dust devil

5 April 2016 Stephen Clark

NASA’s Opportunity Mars rover has captured a dust devil spinning across the barren floor of Endeavour Crater, an impact basin the robot has explored since 2011 in the mission’s long-lived second act.

See comet 252P emerge in the UK predawn sky

27 March 2016 Ade Ashford

When 252P/LINEAR passed just 14 lunar distances from Earth on 21 March, the comet was galloping across the far southern sky at a rate of almost ten degrees per day. Now rapidly heading north, 252P finally appears in the predawn UK sky. While moonlight will interfere with current observations, the comet is much brighter than predicted.

Massive European spacecraft launched toward Mars

14 March 2016 Stephen Clark

Boosted off planet Earth by a Russian Proton rocket, a European-built space probe departed for Mars on Monday, beginning a mission to test future landing technologies and search for methane, a potential signature of microbial life.

Video: ExoMars mission blasts off on Proton rocket

14 March 2016 Stephen Clark

A massive spacecraft bound for Mars lifted off on a Russian Proton rocket Monday, riding more than 2 million pounds of thrust from the launcher’s six main engines through low clouds hanging over the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Live coverage: Europe’s Mars mission launches

14 March 2016 Stephen Clark

A powerful Proton booster launched at 0931:42 GMT Monday with the first part of a multibillion-dollar Mars mission led by the European Space Agency. The Mars orbiter and lander will search for signs of methane on the red planet, and demonstrate technologies to be used on a future European Mars rover.

Ambitious European-led Mars mission ready for liftoff

13 March 2016 Stephen Clark

Humankind’s largest emissary to Mars in a generation is set for blastoff in Monday, when Europe and Russia will dispatch a mission to unravel the mystery of Martian methane.

See Mars escape the claw of the Scorpion on 16 March

13 March 2016 Ade Ashford

Now just ten weeks from opposition, Mars is growing in both apparent size and brightness in the pre-dawn sky as the distance between our two worlds decreases. On the morning of Wednesday, 16 March, around the onset of UK nautical twilight, the Red Planet passes just 0.15 degrees from double star Graffias in the constellation Scorpius.

Proton rocket reaches launch pad with Mars probe

12 March 2016 Stephen Clark

A Russian Proton rocket rolled out to its launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Friday, riding a specially-built rail car with Europe’s ExoMars mission bound for the red planet.

InSight Mars probe escapes cancellation, reset for 2018

10 March 2016 Stephen Clark

The InSight Mars lander has won a reprieve from NASA’s top managers after persistent problems with one of the probe’s science instruments caused the mission to miss a narrow launch window planned for this month.

Ten years of discovery by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

10 March 2016 Astronomy Now

On 10 March 2006, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) entered into orbit around the Red Planet. A decade later, with its six science instruments all still operating, MRO has delivered huge advances in knowledge about Mars, revealing in unprecedented detail a world that held diverse wet environments billions of years ago and remains dynamic today.