Wednesday, April 7, 2010 as of 11:14 AM ET
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. Named after the Roman god of war, Mars, it is often described as the "Red Planet" as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance.
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NASA's newest Mars rover won't touch down on the Red Planet until August, but scientists are already testing out the vehicle's desert driving skills.
Last week, researchers took a test version of NASA's Curiosity rover out to Dumont Dunes in California's Mojave Desert, near Death Valley. The goal was to learn more about how to operate Curiosity after it touches down at Mars' Gale Crater on the night of Aug. 5, researchers said.The test rover is called "Scarecrow" because it doesn't have an onboard computer "brain" like Curiosity does — an apparent reference to the movie "The Wizard of Oz," in which Dorothy's friend Scarecrow asks the all-powerful Wizard for a brain.The Scarecrow rover does have a full-scale version of Curiosity's mobility system, NASA officials said. But aside from that, the rover is stripped down so that it weighs roughly 750 pounds (340 kilograms) — about as much as Curiosity will weigh in the lesser gravity of Mars . (Here on Earth, Curiosity tips the scales at nearl...
Will it find additional evidence of water?
Next stop, Gale Crater.NASA has chosen the landing spot for the car-sized Mars Science Laboratory, the successor to the famously successful Spirit and Opportunity ro...
A well-traveled NASA Mars rover has found some of the best evidence yet that water flowed on the Red Planet's surface long ago, researchers announced Wed., Dec. 7.Th...
In May 2011, SPACE.com reporter Mike Wall visited NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., as scientists and engineers were wrapping up work on Curiosit...
It's possible that the family tree of all life on Earth has its roots on Mars — and a new device could put that theory to the test in a few years, researchers say.Re...
Rover to research possibility of microbial life on Mars
Mission to Mars gets added star power
The roving days are over for NASA's Mars rover Spirit after more than six years rolling across the Martian surface, the space agency announced Tuesday.NASA engineers...
The effort to free NASA's Spirit rover, currently mired in sand on Mars, will begin in earnest today, when engineers team send the first escape commands to the stuck...
Despite NASA's attempts at anthropomorphism, the Mars rovers do not talk, so Spirit was unable to utter any last words. But we did get to share its final view. Behol...
Ever wonder why the red planet is red? About 180 million years ago, a planet-shattering yet naturally occurring nuclear reaction may have wiped out everything on Mar...
The Mars rover Opportunity is on the go again.After spending nearly five months conducting experiments in one spot, the NASA rover moved for the first time this week...
NASA's next Mars rover, the car-size Mars Science Laboratory, or Curiosity, is almost ready to fly to the Red Planet.Beginning tomorrow (Aug. 13), technicians at the...
After nearly a decade of planning, several cost overruns and a two-year delay, NASA is finally set to launch its next Mars rover this week.The car-size Curiosity rov...
The world's biggest extraterrestrial explorer, NASA's Curiosity rover, rocketed toward Mars on Saturday on a search for evidence that the red planet might once have ...
When there's no answer, again and again, at some point you have to stop calling. NASA announced Tuesday (May 24) that it will cease its daily attempts to contact Spi...
NASA's Mars rover Opportunity has finally arrived at the giant crater Endeavour, after nearly three years of intrepid driving across the surface of the Red Planet.Th...
Upcoming plans for space exploration
LOS ANGELES -- The prospect of ever hearing from the stuck Mars rover Spirit is fading after it failed to respond to repeated calls from Earth.Despite the dismal out...
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