The Curiosity team is calling it “Strathdon”—a boulder-sized Martian rock comprised of dozens of sedimentary layers.
Its discovery suggests the area being explored by the NASA rover is more geologically complex than is typically appreciated.
For the past several months, Curiosity has been exploring a region called the “clay-bearing unit” within Gale Crater.
This area, located along the slope of Mount Sharp, once featured lakes and streams, the remnants of which now appear in the form of clay mineral deposits.
By exploring this region, scientists are hoping to catch a glimpse of Mars’ ancient past, when the Red Planet was able to maintain liquid water on the surface—and possibly even life.
Dubbed “Strathdon” by the Curiosity team, the brittle rock looks like a gigantic chunk of baklava, with its tiered, wavy rows.
NASA’s Curiosity rover, the machine that landed on Mars seven years ago, has sent back to Earth a series of images compiled into a bright high-resolution panorama.
Prominently featured in the 360-degree image, which NASA recently shared as an interactive video, is the Red Planet’s Teal Ridge surrounded by the dusty, barren Mars landscape.
In June, the Curiosity rover left a region on Mars that NASA calls the ‘pebble parking lot,’ one that is — as the name suggests — covered in small pebbles.
Beyond that area, the space agency says Curiosity started finding geologic features that grew in complexity, one of which was an outcropping dubbed “Teal Ridge.” Curiosity paused to capture a 360-degree panorama of this area and NASA has published it as the video below.
Following the rover’s panorama session, NASA says Curiosity was able to take close up images of a rock called “Strathdon” that is made from many layers of sediment forming hard, brittle, wavy rows (below).
NASA speculates that the ‘wavy’ nature of these layers hint at a ‘dynamic’ environment, one that may have involved flowing water or wind (or a combination of both).
NASA’s Robotic Refueling Mission 3 (RRM3) completed an initial set of tool operations designed by the Satellite Servicing Projects Division, making the idea of using water ice, oxygen or methane from other worlds as fuel for spacecraft seem plausible.
The ability to store and transfer cryogenic fuels will help enable interstellar voyages in the far future.
Currently, any spacecraft to far away destinations such as the Moon and Mars must carry all of its propellants with it from launch to termination.
NASA had to learn about this the hard way in April when a hardware issue during a Refueling Mission caused the cryogenic tanks to heat up unexpectedly and the gas had to be released.
“NASA’s proven experience and unique facilities are helping commercial companies mature their technologies at a competitive pace,” Jim Reuter, associate administrator of NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) said in a NASA statement.
“We’ve identified technology areas NASA needs for future missions, and these public-private partnerships will accelerate their development so we can implement them faster.”
The place where you complete most activities absorbs your feelings. That’s why bed creates you more lazy and restful even for studying as well. Organize your place for yourself in a manner that sets the mood for studying. Too much clutter and unclean beds definitely do not add to the mood.
After NASA’s Apollo 11 in 1969 which carried the first laser reflectors to the Moon, ISRO launched 2 tiny microlaser reflectors to the moon through Chandrayaan 2 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota on 22 July 2019 at 2.43 PM IST (09:13 UTC).
He referred lunar mission as a symbol of ” faith and fearlessness”, also praised how ISRO scientists dealt with technical snag while addressing Indians from ” Man ki Baat”
Chandrayaan which means ” Moon vehicle ” in Sanskrit is aimed to deliver rover on the plane close to the uncharted lunar South Pole with the intention of investing water and other sources of energy on the moon.
The payloads that include terrain mapping cameras to prepare a 3D map to analyze specific areas while a collimated large array soft x-ray spectrometer will map the majority of major rock-forming elements.
Along with orbiter and rover, the lander wholly built with homegrown technology.
Chandrayaan 2 consists of three segments: Orbiter, Rover, and Lander.
In addition to that, the Earth’s atmosphere, it shields the planet from too much of the sun’s energy.
Now, imagine, if you could put a solar panel into the Earth’s orbit at around 22,000 miles up.
See, the concept of space-based solar power was theorized 40 years back by a very renowned scientist named Peter Glaser.
After his discovery and in response to the periodical energy crises, the idea has since been adopted by the U.S. Department of Energy, NASA, and some of the major aerospace companies and countries like Japan and India.
Many studies have shown that there is no technological barrier to start implementing space-based solar power.
The significant impediment has been identified as being economics because it might be a challenge to provide SBSP at a competitive price.
In this blog, you will come to know the reasons why Python is the best programming language for learning. You will also get the awareness as to why Python is highly sought after and widely implemented by the majority of the companies.
