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-07.07.25

Airborne-NextGen-07.08.25

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

NTSB Prelim: Piper PA-23

Pilot Also Reported That Due To A Fuel Leak, The Auxiliary Fuel Tanks Were Not Used On June 4, 2025, at 13:41 eastern daylight time, a Piper PA-23, N2109P, was substantially damage>[...]

Classic Aero-TV: One Man’s Vietnam

From 2023 (YouTube Edition): Reflections on War’s Collective Lessons and Cyclical Nature The exigencies of war ought be colorblind. Inane social-constructs the likes of racis>[...]

NTSB Final Report: Capella Aircraft Corp FW1C50

Pilot Reported That He Was Unfamiliar With The Single Seat Amateur-Built Airplane And His Intent Was To Perform High-Speed Taxi Testing Analysis: The pilot reported that he was unf>[...]

Classic Aero-TV: Timber Tiger Touts Curtiss Jenny Replicas

From 2023 (YouTube Edition): First Kits to Ship October 2023 Having formerly resurrected the storied shape of the Ryan ST—in effigy, anyway—Montrose, Colorado-based Tim>[...]

ANN's Daily Aero-Term (07.04.25): Performance-Based Navigation (PBN) [ICAO]

Performance-Based Navigation (PBN) [ICAO] Area navigation based on performance requirements for aircraft operating along an ATS route, on an instrument approach procedure or in a d>[...]

blog comments powered by Disqus



Advertisement

Advertisement

Podcasts

Advertisement

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