This mosaic from the Mast Camera on NASA’s Curiosity rover shows the view looking toward its first science destination, the Glenelg area, where three different types of Martian terrain come together. (Image: NASA)

The Mars rover Curiosity is about to undertake its first major scientific experiment on the Red Planet.Before Curiosity heads off to its primary destination, the foothills of Mount Sharp, scientists want to learn more about the terrain surrounding the rover’s landing site.

The Mars mission team members are  fascinated with the geology of the area, according to Rob Manning, the Mars Science Laboratory’s (MSL) chief engineer.  They’ve noticed  the surface is covered with a type of gravelly material, rocks called cobbles and various collections of compressed soil.

“It may very well be that we’re on a place that has been affected by water in the past, and that’s very exciting because that’s what we had hoped for,”  Manning said.

Photo of the Martian surface, including a map of the route driven by NASA’s Mars rover on its trip to the Glenelg area on the 43rd Martian day of Curiosity’s mission on Mars – Sept. 19, 2012.  (Image: NASA)

Since landing seven weeks ago, Curiosity (as of 9/19/12) has traveled about 91 meters, approximately the length of an American football field. The rover is now traveling in a different direction toward a location called Glenelg, which lies about 400 meters east-southeast of Curiosity’s landing site.

One  type of terrain  scientists want to learn more about is a kind of bedrock which could be suitable for eventual drilling by Curiosity.

The next is an area  marked by many small craters and scientists believe it might represent an older or harder Martian surface.

The third terrain is similar to  the type where the rover landed.  It’s of particular interest to team members because they’d like to determine if it contains rocks with the same kind of texture as those found in an area close to the landing site where blasts from the descent stage rocket engines scoured away some of the surface.

On its way to Glenelg this week, the rover came across an unusual pyramid-shaped rock. The rover team is planning to touch this mystery rock with a spectrometer to determine its basic composition. They’ll also use an arm-mounted camera to take close-up photographs.  This encounter will likely be the first time  the rover  uses its robotic arm to touch a Martian rock.

Curiosity will then continue on its voyage to Glenelg, where the team will choose another rock for the rover’s first analysis of powder drilled from interiors of rocks.

On it’s trip to Glenelg, Curiosity came across this pyramid-shaped rock, which NASA says will be a suitable target for the first use of the rover’s contact instruments. (Photo: NASA)

Once the rover’s side trip to Glenelg concludes, Curiosity will head toward its primary destination, Mount Sharp, which may take a year or two to reach.

Manning tells us everything on the rover has worked perfectly so far except for one of Curiosity’s wind sensors, which was damaged when Martian pebbles hit it.  Since the rover has other wind sensors, the mission should not be impacted.

In fact, the mission is going so well the rover team is amazed everything is working so much better on Mars than it did while undergoing testing here on Earth.

Manning says the rover experienced problem after problem during testing. After seeing the rover perform so well on the Red Planet, the MSL team has concluded Curiosity would rather be on Mars than on its home planet.

And it’s a good thing because Curiosity’s visit there could be extended.

The rover’s older sibling,  Opportunity, has continued to roam and examine the planet, long after the planned end of its mission. Manning expects Curiosity will do likewise.

There are several factors which justify that optimism. The rover’s power source, according to Manning, is producing more energy than expected. The team also found the Martian climate is better than was anticipated so the unit doesn’t need as much heating as was first thought.  Also, with NASA’s orbiting spacecraft flying overhead, the rover has been able to save a great deal of energy while sending back information, which could allow Curiosity to operate longer.

Curiosity’s primary destination, the base of Mount Sharp. (Photo: NASA)

If  Curiosity’s time on Mars is extended, Manning expects the rover to continue its voyage up Mount Sharp, which is made up of various layers of material, with the oldest at the bottom of the mountain and the youngest at its peak.

At each of these layers, Manning says that, there will be an opportunity to look back in time into the Martian geological history.  So as long as the rover keeps working and NASA extends its mission, “we will continue going up and explore and explore and there is a chapter, chapter and chapter of books telling us about Mars just ahead of us.”

This weekend on the radio edition of Science World, Rob Manning joins us to provide an update with the latest on Curiosity’s mission.

Check out the right column for scheduled air-times or listen now to the interview below.

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This photo of the base of Mount Sharp shows the layered geology of Mars. (NASA)

NASA’s Curiosity rover has beamed back spectacular HD photos of the Martian surface.

Captured by a 100-millimeter telephoto lens and 34-milllimeter wide angle lens, the images show the dark dunes,  layered rock and canyons of Mount Sharp, a mountain inside Gale Crater, where the rover landed.

NASA also released photos of Curiosity at work as it prepares to explore the Red Planet.

In another feat, Curiosity received and beamed back the first human voice transmission to travel from Earth to another planet and back.

The voice was that of NASA Administrator, Charles Bolden. The message was radioed to Mars, where it was received and then retransmitted back to Earth by Curiosity. Here on Earth, the return signal from Mars was picked up by NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN).

Up close is the gravelly area around the rover’s landing site while in the distance is Mt. Sharp, Curiosity’s eventual destination. (NASA)

This image highlights the varied geology of Mount Sharp, a mountain inside Gale Crater, where the rover landed. (NASA)

The two donut-shaped tracks make an infinity symbol and mark Curiosity’s first two drives. The landing site is at the far right. (NASA)

In his message, Bolden noted the difficulties of putting a rover on Mars and congratulated NASA employees and all  involved with the project on the successful landing.  He also commented on how curiosity is what drives humans to explore.

“The knowledge we hope to gain from our observation and analysis of Gale Crater will tell us much about the possibility of life on Mars as well as the past and future possibilities for our own planet. Curiosity will bring benefits to Earth and inspire a new generation of scientists and explorers, as it prepares the way for a human mission in the not too distant future,” Bolden said in his recorded message.

The rover is also busy stretching its legs, recently taking a couple of test drives near its landing spot.

Curiosity is already sending more data from the Martian surface than all of NASA’s earlier rovers combined, the space agency said.

Members of NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory mission listen to a voice message from NASA Administrator Charles Bolden in the mission support area at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory

First color image of the Martian landscape returned from curiosity 08-06-12 (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems)

On its first full solar day on Mars, the Curiosity rover is under going a month-long series of health checks before getting down to its mission of exploring the chemistry of Mars.

Curiosity isn’t expected to drill its first drill hole in a Mars rock for about another month or two, according to Rob Manning, the Mars mission’s chief engineer.

However, we’re already getting some interesting images of the red planet.

Almost two hours after Monday’s  touchdown, the rover started snapping pictures of its new home in  Mars’ Gale Crater.

But even before that, some of Curiosity’s trip through the thin Martian atmosphere and subsequent landing were caught on camera by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been circling the planet for over six years.

Curiosity and its parachute were spotted by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter as Curiosity descended to the surface on 0500 UTC 08-06-12. (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona)

The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, caught Curiosity while it was still connected to its almost 16-meter parachute as it descended to its landing site.

A camera aboard  Curiosity itself took a sequence of self-portraits of its trip through the Martian atmosphere as well.

According NASA, the Mars Descent Imager (MARDI) snapped over 1,500 images which are being stored within Curiosity’s onboard memory banks.  When those images are put together at the highest resolution, they should produce a video showing the rover’s descent from the time its heat shield was released, all the way until it touched down on Mars.

This stop-motion video shows 297 frames from the Mars Descent Imager aboard NASA’s Curiosity rover as it descended to the surface of Mars. (Video: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Until  we get that detailed video of Curiosity’s descent and touchdown, we’ll have to be satisfied with  297 color, low-resolution images the rover recently beamed back to Earth.

This image taken by Curiosity shows Mars’ Mount Sharp. The rover’s shadow can also be seen. (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

“The image sequence received so far indicates Curiosity had, as expected, a very exciting ride to the surface,” says Mike Malin from Malin Space Systems in San Diego, the imaging scientist for the Mars mission. “But as dramatic as they are, there is real other-world importance to obtaining them. These images will help the mission scientists interpret the rover’s surroundings, the rover drivers in planning for future drives across the surface, as well as assist engineers in their design of forthcoming landing systems for Mars or other worlds.”

Other activities planned for the Curiosity today include setting up its high-gain antenna, collecting science data from the system’s Radiation Assessment Detector and Rover Environmental Monitoring Station instruments, as well as picking up  additional imagery of its surroundings.

This is all part of the mission’s characterization activity phase, which tests how Curiosity’s subsystems and instruments are functioning after landing and within the environment and gravitational field of Mars.

Artist concept of NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover, a mobile robot for investigating Mars’ past or present ability to sustain microbial life. (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Excitement is building at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.  A little over eight months after its November  2011 launch, NASA’s newest and most advanced Mars rover  is set to land on the red planet on Monday, Aug. 6.

The Curiosity rover carries the most sophisticated payload of scientific equipment  ever used on Mars’ surface. It’s  10 times the size of earlier Mars rovers, the size as a Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) rather than the golf cart size of previous rovers. Scientists hope Curiosity will help unlock the mystery of whether life could exist on the red planet.

So far, the Mars mission is on track but its biggest challenges will come when the spacecraft carrying Curiosity executes its entry, descent and landing on Mars.  The procedure is so complex mission team members refer to it as “seven minutes of terror.”

Rob Manning, the Mars mission’s chief engineer, says  setting  Curiosity safely on Mars  is the culmination of about a decade’s worth of “thinking, designing and building, involving thousands of people” from around the world.

Artist’s concept of Mars Science Laboratory entry, descent and landing (the 7 minutes of terror’). (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

The Mars Science Laboratory mission is the first of its kind, according to Manning. Although there have been a number of missions to Mars,  Curiosity will be the first rover to robotically explore; drilling into rock and  performing geochemistry,  to gain a better understanding of the chemistry of Mars.

The work performed by Curiosity is expected to allow scientists to learn more about the early history of Mars and whether planet may have, at one time, been  habitable for life. Other exploratory missions have shown Mars was a very wet planet.

Although a smaller  Mars rover named Opportunity is still working, sending back valuable observational data after more than eight years on the red planet, Manning says Curiosity alone will allow scientists to gather and analyze data on the microscopic, chemical composition of Mars through the vehicle’s advanced on board geochemistry laboratory.

The Mars  mission scientists also hope to learn about Mars’ environmental conditions on a microscopic scale,  since Curiosity’s drilling function allows it to gather samples from a much earlier time in the planet’s history.

Artist’s conception of Curiosity using the rover’s ChemCam instrument to identify the chemical composition of a rock sample on the surface of Mars. (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Data gathered from  other rovers  suggests Mars has water underground. Scientists believe that water was on the surface long enough to chemically alter rock and that the planet has a rich water-based history.  Mission scientists now want to determine whether Martian water was around long enough for conditions to sustain life and for life itself to have evolved.

“If we can find signs that Mars was a habitable place and, even more excitingly, if we can find residue of life on Mars in the form of complex organic compounds, we might be able to say something about how life is not ubiquitous on this planet,” says Manning. “In every crack and every crevice of this planet you will find life, maybe Mars itself is the same way, and maybe life got started there too.”

Once safely on the ground, Curiosity won’t move from its landing spot for about five days, to allow the engineers on Earth to make sure the surface directly beneath the rover’s wheels doesn’t present an immediate hazard.

Manning doesn’t expect Curiosity to drill its first hole in a Mars rock until a month or two after landing.

According to NASA, the Mars Science Laboratory’s primary mission will last one Martian year, or about 687 Earth days, surviving at least one Martian winter in the process.

Star Trek’s Captain Kirk, actor William Shatner, narrates this video about NASA’s Curiosity rover, from its entry and descent through the Martian atmosphere to its landing and exploration of the Red Planet. (Video: NASA Television)

Rob Manning joins us this weekend on the radio edition of ‘Science World’. He talks about the Curiosity, the Mars Science Laboratory mission and what scientists hope to learn from its work. Check out the right column for scheduled air-times or listen to the interview with Ms. Wallace below.

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These two images show HD 157728, a nearby star 1.5 times larger than the sun. Its light has been mostly removed by Project 1640. The left image was made without the ultra-precise starlight control that Project 1640 is capable of, while the right image was made with the starlight control in place. (Images: Project 1640)

Astronomers have a powerful new tool to help them in their search for  planets outside of our solar system.

Project 1640 is a first-of-its-kind, high-contrast imaging program which combines high-tech instrumentation and software, giving scientists the ability to spot planets orbiting distant suns in star systems outside of our solar system.

Ever since the search for exoplanets began, astronomers have relied on various indirect methods to detect them because the blinding brightness of their stars makes it virtually impossible to observe the planets directly.

The Project 1640 instrument mounted at the focus of the 200-inch Hale telescope. (Photo: © AMNH/B. R. Oppenheimer)

Project 1640 uses a new technique which produces extremely precise dark holes around stars of interest. This allows scientists a look at areas surrounding the star which would normally be obscured by its intense light.

“We are blinded by this starlight,” says Ben Oppenheimer,  a principal investigator for Project 1640. “Once we can actually see these exoplanets, we can determine the colors they emit, the chemical compositions of their atmospheres, and even the physical characteristics of their surfaces. Ultimately, direct measurements, when conducted from space, can be used to better understand the origin of Earth and to look for signs of life in other worlds.”

Its creators say the system produces some of the highest-contrast images ever made, revealing objects that are one -to-10 million times fainter than the star at the center of the image.

The instrument, which started taking data last month, operates on the Hale Telescope at California’s Palomar Observatory. It’s been in development for more than six years through a collaborative effort among New York’s American Museum of Natural History, the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

With Project 1640 up and running, researchers searching for extrasolar planets have begun a three-year survey to image hundreds of young stars outside of our solar system.

“The more we learn about them, the more we realize how vastly different planetary systems can be from our own,” says Gautam Vasisht,  a Jet Propulsion Laboratory astronomer. “All indications point to a tremendous diversity of planetary systems, far beyond what was imagined just 10 years ago. We are on the verge of an incredibly rich new field.”

NASA finds there are more potentially hazardous asteroids (PHA)s, closely aligned with the plane of our solar system than previous models suggested. (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

First, the good news. There are fewer asteroids near Earth than previously estimated.  Now the bad news. A new NASA survey also finds there may be more than twice as many aligned with Earth’s orbit than thought, which could increase the odds of an asteroid coming close enough to us to cause concern.

The findings from NASA/JPL’s Near Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Explorer (NEOWISE) project also reveal new information about the origins and possible dangers these space objects might pose.

Potentially hazardous asteroids, or PHA’s, are a subset of a larger group of near-Earth asteroids,  which come within eight million kilometers of us and are big enough to pass through Earth’s atmosphere, causing a great amount of damage.

To get a count on how many of these possible troublemakers are out there, NASA used one of its space telescopes to make an assessment of our solar system’s population of PHA’s.

WISE, an unmanned satellite carrying an infrared heat-sensitive telescope, was launched in December 2009 and spent a little over a year imaging the entire sky to provide data on asteroids, the coolest and dimmest stars, and the most radiant galaxies.

Approximately 4,700 PHAs, give or take about 1,500, with diameters larger than 100 meters, were found, according to NEOWISE principal investigator Amy Mainzer.

Most of the asteroids in our solar system never get close to Earth.  They’re found in what’s called the Asteroid Belt, which is between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

Scientists think these asteroids may have been fragments that were trying to come together to form a planet when the solar system was forming.  However,  the overwhelming gravitational influence of Jupiter was so strong, it kept the planet from forming.

But, occasionally, if there is an interaction with one of the giant planets, some of the asteroids may be forced to wander away from the main belt and into near-Earth space – causing concern for those of here on terra firma.

To make their tally, Mainzer along with her colleagues at JPL examined approximately 107 PHA’s with WISE telescope data, providing them with a representative sample of the total population of these potentially dangerous objects.

From that sample, Mainzer’s team was able to calculate the total number of PHA’s in the solar system.

This diagram illustrates the differences between orbits of a typical near-Earth asteroid (blue) and a potentially hazardous asteroid (PHA) (orange). (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Of course, the big question remains how likely is it that one of these potentially-hazardous asteroids actually could strike Earth.   Mainzer, looking back at Earth’s history, points out that major asteroid strikes very rarely happen.  Scientists estimate that such a major hit happens every 100 million years or so.  The last mammoth asteroid collided with Earth about 65 million years ago, causing, scientists think, the extinction of most life on our planet, including the dinosaurs.

Mainzer says astronomers have already discovered most of the significant asteroids out there.  However, she warns, there are many smaller asteroids, which haven’t been discovered yet.  The NEOWISE study indicates that only between 20 and 30 percent of these have been discovered so far.

To keep us safer from asteroid impacts, Mainzer says the most important thing that we can do is actually go look for them.  “Because, if you don’t know where they are, you have no idea how to really deal with any risk,” she says.

Mainzer and her colleagues are currently working on a proposal to build and carry out an advanced survey mission.  Called the Near Earth Object Camera (NEOCam), this proposed mission would locate many more asteroids to provide a more accurate picture of the total asteroid population.

Dr. Amy Mainzer joins us on this week’s radio edition of Science World.  Check out the right column for scheduled air-times or listen to the interview with Dr. Mainzer below.

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Other stories we cover on the “Science World” radio program this week include:

• Success! Privately-funded cargo spacecraft docks with the ISS
• Recommendation to halt prostate cancer screening stirs controversy
• Scientists, lawmakers target invasive Asian fish species
• Babies born by C-section more likely to become obese, study says