A Martian spacecraft spied a Martian rover rumbling through the red desert.
The japan has eroticized ______. new year's eve the summer solstice the vernal equinox christmas evenew image captured by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter — which has orbited Mars since 2006 — shows the space agency's car-sized Curiosity rovertraversing the terrain below as it scales the planet's 3.4-mile-high Mount Sharp.
"The image marks what may be the first time one of the agency’s Mars orbiters has captured the rover driving," NASA said in a statement.
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter hosts a powerful camera — called the High Resolution Imaging Experiment, or HIRISE — which can spot surface objects as small as a kitchen table from some 160 to 200 miles above the surface. Here, we see the Curiosity rover as a dark spot, trailed by the robot's tracks as its six metallic wheels crossed the desert.
These tracks, spanning 1,050 feet (320 meters), were created over 11 separate drives. The orbiter spotted the tracks and rover on Feb. 28.
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
The Curiosity rover has driven over 21 miles of uneven desert since it landed in 2012, and is now ascending Mount Sharp as it investigates Mars' climatic and geologic past. Curiosity's observations point to a Martian past, billions of years ago, that supported floods, lakes, rivers, and even rain. For example, the rover revealed ripple formations on the surface, which is telltale evidence of small waves breaking on lake shores long ago. Observations like this suggest that Mars once was warm, wet, and quite habitable before it gradually transformed into the extremely dry and frigid desert we see today. (Today, Mars is 1,000 times drierthan the driest desert on Earth.)
Curiosity is currently headed to a new destination on Mount Sharp, a place home to expansive and compelling "boxworks" formations. From space, they look like spiderwebs. They are "believed to have formed when minerals carried by Mount Sharp's last pulses of water settled into fractures in surface rock and then hardened," NASA explained. "As portions of the rock eroded away, what remained were the minerals that had cemented themselves in the fractures, leaving the weblike boxwork."
As NASA's rovers find more and more evidence of past water on Mars, it's becoming clear that Mars was once a planet friendly to life, capable of hosting the temperate environs that could potentially host microbes.
Still today, however, there's no compelling proof that life ever existed on Mars. But there are quite a few Martian robots, both dead and alive.
Topics NASA
(Editor: {typename type="name"/})
Best Soundcore by Anker Space A40 earbuds deal: Save $35 at Amazon
Play the new 'Overwatch' map Oasis right now
GoPro is coming to terms with reality: It's just a camera company
Netflix finally gives us the feature we've been waiting for
Lego free Valentine's Day Heart: How to get free Lego
Google Earth Timelapse shows us how our planet has changed since 1984
What are those! NFL players can wear custom cleats this week without fines
The best thing you'll read about journalism in 2016 is a comic book
Packers vs. Eagles 2025: How to watch NFL online
Beyoncé just made your holiday shopping much easier
Preorder the new Anker Soundcore Sleep A30 earbuds with ANC for $159
This man is apparently the world's most convincing Van Gogh lookalike
接受PR>=1、BR>=1,流量相当,内容相关类链接。