Browse Archive

  • In this image from Aug. 12, 2009, rover team members are moving a board used in getting the setup ready for the next test.

    Free Spirit: Planned Rover Test to Run a Week or More

    Mars rover team members are planning a long-duration experiment with the test rover at JPL beginning next week.

  • This image of Victoria Crater in the Meridiani Planum region of Mars was taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

    Mars Orbiter Shows Angled View of Martian Crater

    The high-resolution camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has returned a dramatic oblique view of the Martian crater that a rover explored for two years.

  • This view of a rock called Block Island, the largest meteorite yet found on Mars.

    Mars Meteorite Yields Clues About Planet's Past

    NASA's Mars Rover Opportunity is investigating a metallic meteorite the size of a large watermelon that is providing researchers more details about the Red Planet's environmental history.

  • artist's concept of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

    Science Operations Resume

    NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has been restored to full operations, making intensive science observations of Mars, four days after it unexpectedly switched to its backup computer.

  • Kepler with distant solar system

    The Perseids are Coming

    This week, it's the annual Perseid meteor shower, when lots of meteors will appear over Earth's northern hemisphere when our planet plows through a swarm of dust shed by periodic comet Swift-Tuttle.

  • montage showing Saturn

    Saturn to Pull Celestial Houdini on August 11

    In 1918, magician Harry Houdini created a sensation when he made a 10,000 pound elephant disappear before a mystified audience at New York's famed Hippodrome theatre.

  • Panelists reviewed results to date from testing possible maneuvers to use in driving NASA's Mars Rover Spirit

    Free Spirit: More Testing Before Driving on Mars

    A review on Aug. 6 of test results to date yielded a decision to conduct further checkouts in an augmented testing set-up on Earth.

  • artist's concept of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

    Orbiter Safe After Computer Swap

    NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is in safe mode, a precautionary standby status, and in communications with Earth after unexpectedly switching to its backup computer on Thurs. Aug. 6.

  • The Cassini spacecraft captured this image of a small object in the outer portion of Saturn's B ring.

    Revelations in Saturn's Rings Continue as Equinox Approaches

    Thanks to a special play of sunlight and shadow as Saturn continues its march towards its August 11 equinox, recent images captured by NASA's Cassini spacecraft are revealing new three-dimensional objects and structures in the planet's otherwise flat rings.

  • Photograph of the sun appearing blue, taken by an ultraviolet camera onboard NASA's STEREO spacecraft

    Avalanche! The Incredible Data Stream of SDO

    When NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) leaves Earth in November 2009 onboard an Atlas V rocket, the thunderous launch will trigger an avalanche...of data.