Quite possibly. Here’s a picture of it: There’s a pretty good chance that this is a manufactured object and not some natural thingie that formed on the surface of Mars by Mars-esque natural processes. But, if that’s true, then there’s a pretty good chance that the object, formed by an intelligent being, is just some…

The “Next Media” animation company used to send me several animations a week (a few a day for a while) but then they were bought out by a major media outlet (can’t remember which one) so most of the emails I get from them now are about how great they are, rather than providing much…

Here’s the last few news reports: August 21: NASA’s Curiosity Studies Mars Surroundings, Nears Drive NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity has been investigating the Martian weather around it and the soil beneath it, as its controllers prepare for the car-size vehicle’s first drive on Mars. The rover’s weather station, provided by Spain, checks air temperature, ground…

Never mind the heat shield, the parachute, the thruster-guided landing, all of that. Curiosity went to Mars to carry out experiments using Big Science Gear and now it is confirmed that at least one set of gear works! The method is laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy, in which very high power but short burst laser light is…

The Angry Red Planet just gut a little angrier: This sequence of images shows the heat shield from NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory hitting the ground on Mars and raising a cloud of dust. From NASA

A whole bunch of photographs rom Mars have bee posted by NASA, here. I thought the following one was pretty cool because it shows how accommodating the Martians are, cleaning the dust off the lens and all.

Curiosity landed on Mars last night (I assume you were watching). Well, the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter managed to take a picture of Curiosity with its parachute! This is so cool. Look:

You can watch along with NASA and see briefings and stuff on Curiosity Cam. The Exploratorium also has a page with a web case and various videos. In case you haven’t seen the Seven Minutes of Terror video, here it is: Updates and a countdown clock will be found here on the NASA site.

This just in: Curiosity Closes in on its New ‘Home’ Sat, 04 Aug 2012 06:20:24 PM CDT With Mars looming ever larger in front of it, NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft and its Curiosity rover are in the final stages of preparing for entry, descent and landing on the Red Planet at 10:31 p.m. PDT…

NASA acknowledges the fact that most missions to Mars fail. The rocket goes off course or crashes, or the device lands broken, or works for a while then stops. According to the latest press release, which has some interesting photos including the one shown here, The gravitational tug of Mars is now pulling NASA’s car-size…

… well, not really, but … No matter how interesting the big expensive science NASA does is, or how important the work is to understanding our planet and solar system or figuring out important problems, nothing is as cool as seeing your own house on a satellite photograph, as it were: The High Resolution Imaging…

This August, Mars Science Robot Curiosity will land on the surface of the Angry Red Planet equipped with a Penny to tell how big things are. The camera at the end of the robotic arm on NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity has its own calibration target, a smartphone-size plaque that looks like an eye chart supplemented…

Can you imagine driving around on roadless terrain with a four wheel drive vehicle for eight years and not ever changing a tire, getting a tuneup, adjusting the suspension, replacing the hydraulics or brakes, or doing any other service whatsoever on your vehicle? I’ve actually done that, and I’m here to tell you, you can’t…

This is very, very cool. Geologically, there are ways in which minerals move around and get deposited with rock. A common phenomenon is for a crack to form due to cooling of molten rock or an earthquake or something, and then this space gets filled in. Stuff might just fall into it. Liquidizer rock (magma)…

A newly found, buried deposit of frozen carbon dioxide — dry ice — near the south pole of Mars contains about 30 times more carbon dioxide than previously estimated to be frozen near the pole. This map color-codes thickness estimates of the deposit derived and extrapolated from observations by the Shallow Subsurface Radar (SHARAD) instrument…

A question came up in the comments on the post Mars will pass behind sun, Rover operations affected, and the answer turns out to be very interesting.

… maybe. Maybe there were vast oceans, and maybe they were occupied by microbes. This, according to reserearch being discussed in Natoial Geographic.

Rocks examined by NASA’s Spirit Mars Rover hold evidence of a wet, non-acidic ancient environment that may have been favorable for life. Confirming this mineral clue took four years of analysis by several scientists. An outcrop that Spirit examined in late 2005 revealed high concentrations of carbonate, which originates in wet, near-neutral conditions, but dissolves…

Or should I say “ice.” The Phoenix Mars Lander seems to be dead in the dust, with its solar panels having suffered severe winter ice damage as shown by photos from the Odyssey Orbiter:

This oblique view shows geological layers of rock exposed on a mound inside Gale Crater on Mars. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/USGS

Look closely at this picture of Victoria Crater on Mars. Clicking on the picture will give you a really big file, but a much better look. There are a number of things you can see in this view of Victoria that you could not see on earlier version because this is a somewhat oblique view.…