NASA Formally Retires Mars InSight Lander 4 Years After Its Arrival on Red Planet

NASA Formally Retires Mars InSight Lander 4 Years After Its Arrival on Red Planet

ByNews Polite

NASA has formally retired its Mars InSight lander, the first robotic probe specially designed to study the deep interior of a distant world, four years after it arrived on the surface of the red planet, the US space agency announced on Wednesday. Mission controllers at NASA‘s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) near…

NASA Spacecrafts at Mars Record Biggest Meteor Strikes, Impact Craters Yet

NASA Spacecrafts at Mars Record Biggest Meteor Strikes, Impact Craters Yet

ByNews Polite

Two NASA spacecraft at Mars — one on the surface and the other in orbit — have recorded the biggest meteor strikes and impact craters yet. The high-speed barrages last year sent seismic waves rippling thousands of miles across Mars, the first ever detected near the surface of another planet,…

ISRO Mars Orbiter Mission Completes Eight Years in Orbit, Well Beyond Planned Six-Month Lifespan

ISRO Mars Orbiter Mission Completes Eight Years in Orbit, Well Beyond Planned Six-Month Lifespan

ByNews Polite

India’s Mars orbiter craft has completed eight years in its orbit, well beyond its designed mission life of six months. Plans on a follow-on ‘Mangalyaan’ mission to the Red Planet, however, are yet to be firmed up. The Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) – a technology demonstration venture – is the…

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope Captures Its First Images of Mars, Reveals Intriguing Details

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope Captures Its First Images of Mars, Reveals Intriguing Details

ByNews Polite

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, known for capturing some incredible images of the universe, has presented us with new pictures of our neighbouring planet, Mars. The telescope captured its first images and spectra of Mars on September 5. The James Webb Space Telescope, an international collaboration between NASA, ESA (European…

ESA’s MARSIS Gets Software Upgrade 19 Years After Its Launch, Mars Exploration Said to Get More Efficient

ESA’s MARSIS Gets Software Upgrade 19 Years After Its Launch, Mars Exploration Said to Get More Efficient

ByNews Polite

The Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding (MARSIS) instrument on the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Mars Express spacecraft is set to get a major software upgrade that will boost its capabilities. The Mars Express was ESA’s first mission to Mars, launched on June 2, 2003 and it ran…

NASA to Launch EMIT Mission Aboard SpaceX to Study How Dust Particles Affect Earth: How to Watch Live Broadcast

NASA to Launch EMIT Mission Aboard SpaceX to Study How Dust Particles Affect Earth: How to Watch Live Broadcast

ByNews Polite

NASA is set to launch a probe to the International Space Station (ISS) on June 10 that will monitor climate change on Earth. Named Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT), this probe will study the composition of mineral dust from Earth’s arid regions and how the desert dust carried…

Five Planets to Line Up in Sky This Month in Rare Conjunction, Will Be Visible With Naked Eyes: How to Watch

Five Planets to Line Up in Sky This Month in Rare Conjunction, Will Be Visible With Naked Eyes: How to Watch

ByNews Polite

There’s a treat lined up for skywatchers this June as they will be able to watch five planets, visible with naked eyes, arranged in their natural order from the Sun – from left to right as you scan the horizon. These five planets are Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn….

What’s It Like to Be on Venus or Pluto? We Studied Their Sand Dunes and Found Some Clues

What’s It Like to Be on Venus or Pluto? We Studied Their Sand Dunes and Found Some Clues

ByNews Polite

What is it like to be on the surface of Mars or Venus? Or even further afield, such as on Pluto, or Saturn’s moon Titan? This curiosity has driven advances in space exploration since Sputnik 1 was launched 65 years ago. But we’re only beginning to scratch the surface of…