Search For Water On Mars Continues | Aero-News Network
Aero-News Network
RSS icon RSS feed
podcast icon MP3 podcast
Subscribe Aero-News e-mail Newsletter Subscribe

Airborne Unlimited -- Most Recent Daily Episodes

Episode Date

Airborne-Monday

Airborne-Tuesday

Airborne-Wednesday Airborne-Thursday

Airborne-Friday

Airborne On YouTube

Airborne-Unlimited-06.23.25

Airborne-NextGen-06.24.25

AirborneUnlimited-06.25.25

Airborne-AffordableFlyers-06.26.25

AirborneUnlimited-06.27.25

Sun, Feb 22, 2004

Search For Water On Mars Continues

Rovers Dig For Clues

Both of America's Martian rovers -- Spirit and Opportunity -- were digging holes on Mars Saturday, trying to scrape up evidence that water once flowed over the surface of the Red Planet.

Scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena (CA) said Spirit had to work a bit harder to gouge the Martian soil with its robot arm. It spent two hours rocking its wheels back and forth over a patch of the Martian surface, hoping to move aside the most recent soil deposits to get at samples thousands of years older. "The soil at her location was apparently firmer than at Opportunity's site," said Jim Erickson, mission manager for Opportunity.

But once the three-inch trench was dug, Spirit was able to use its thermal emission spectrometer to observe the soil sample. The first rover to land on Mars also looked over toward the horizon and gave itself a visual exam, looking for signs of dust that might block its solar panels.

Spirit will continue studying the trench it dug for the next couple of days, before moving another 445 feet to a crater named by scientists as "Bonneville."

On the other side of Mars, Opportunity finished out the day reviewing samples in the trench it had dug. It then stowed its own robotic arm and made its longest drive yet -- about 50 feet. It's on the way to observe an outcropping dubbed "Stone Tablet" and remotely view another called "El Capitan."

FMI: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mer

Advertisement

More News

ANN's Daily Aero-Linx (06.29.25)

Aero Linx: Transport Canada We are a federal institution, leading the Transport Canada portfolio and working with our partners. Transport Canada is responsible for transportation p>[...]

ANN's Daily Aero-Term (06.29.25): Gross Navigation Error (GNE)

Gross Navigation Error (GNE) A lateral deviation from a cleared track, normally in excess of 25 Nautical Miles (NM). More stringent standards (for example, 10NM in some parts of th>[...]

Classic Aero-TV: Anticipating Futurespace - Blue Origin Visits Airventure 2017

From AirVenture 2017 (YouTube Edition): Flight-Proven Booster On Display At AirVenture… EAA AirVenture Oshkosh is known primarily as a celebration of experimental and amateu>[...]

NTSB Final Report: Cirrus SR22

Aircraft Parachute System (CAPS) Was Deployed About 293 Ft Above Ground Level, Which Was Too Low To Allow For Full Deployment Of The Parachute System Analysis: The day before the a>[...]

Airborne Affordable Flyers 06.26.25: PA18 Upgrades, ‘Delta Force’, Rhinebeck

Also: 48th Annual Air Race Classic, Hot Air Balloon Fire, FAA v Banning 100LL, Complete Remote Pilot The news Piper PA-18 Super Cub owners have been waiting for has finally arrived>[...]

blog comments powered by Disqus



Advertisement

Advertisement

Podcasts

Advertisement

© 2007 - 2025 Web Development & Design by Pauli Systems, LC