A very interesting study, of which you can download the full research PDF for free: http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/6/eaar6692/tab-pdf It appears that the Martian climate was much wetter than expected and also for longer periods of time…. This post has been automatically translated. See the original post here.

This image taken on November 16, 2017, depicts two craters of recent formation (two to four years), however absent in photos taken in 2012.As in very many similar cases, the area surrounding the impact appears distinctly bluish, as if the immediate subsurface was much bluer than the surface layer; definitely curious! This post has been automatically translated. See the original post here.

What I had already informally announced a couple of days ago, from the analysis of some photos of Mars taken by amateur astronomers with telescopes from Earth, has become official news.The sandstorm triggered on May 31 has enveloped the entire planet and after having completely obscured “at night” the site of Opportunity, has already drastically reduced the visibility even in the site of Curiosity where the Sun is now invisible as if it were covered by thick clouds.In a scale called “tau” and abbreviated with the homonymous Greek letter “τ”, it expresses the transparency of the atmosphere with values ranging from 0 (totally clear and transparent) to 12 (totally impenetrable to light and then total darkness even during the day). The last measurements sent by Opportunity two weeks ago gave τ=11.8 where currently Curiosity already stands at τ=8 with a landscape weakly illuminated by a red twilight in the total absence of shadows.Despite its tenuous atmosphere (or supposedly so!), storms of this magnitude can lift dust up to over 60 km altitude for months; the last one of this magnitude occurred in 2007. The rovers present then were dependent on solar energy and had to be put in a state of “hibernation” thus losing the ability to document the phenomenon from the ground.Curiosity instead, working with atomic batteries, will document for the first time what happens on the surface of Mars during a global dust storm, providing valuable information to understand the phenomena that lead an atmosphere so rarefied to raise an unprecedented amount of dust, a phenomenon still not fully understood even by scientists at NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. This post has been automatically translated. See the original post here.

By now it is a fact, the sandstorm on Mars has enveloped the entire planet!For those who wanted to shoot Mars through the telescope taking advantage of the particularly favorable minimum distance that would characterize this year’s opposition, the disappointment will be considerable.Mars will appear as an orange globe in which at most you can distinguish the south polar cap and this situation could last for several weeks.Meanwhile, while Curiosity takes advantage of its energy independence to take selfies and film the event on site, we begin to despair for Opportunity.Opportunity’s batteries are of the lithium-ion type and have more than fifteen years, so if they can not be recharged in time, they could turn off everything permanently!On the other hand this storm continues to increase in intensity and is a candidate to become one of the most intense and certainly the most documented to date. This post has been automatically translated. See the original post here.

As can be seen from the simulated comparison image much of the detail is almost totally concealed by a blanket of sand virtually everywhere except the central area of the south polar cap (top right). Photo by Tom Harradine This post has been automatically translated. See the original post here.

A beautiful video that shows in sequence all the images taken by the Hazcam front left.The sounds that you hear during the video were obtained using the accelerometer on board as a microphone, to give the idea of the roughness of the ground. This post has been automatically translated. See the original post here.

Tonight at 19:30 Italian time NASA will hold a conference call to explain the recent development of a huge sandstorm that is affecting the site where Opportunity is operating but may soon extend to the entire planet!At the moment the storm is affecting an area of 41 million square kilometers, the equivalent of Europe and Africa combined.The latest images of Opportunity, dating back to about four days ago, show us a totally dark environment even in broad daylight, where more than 99.8% of sunlight is blocked by sand in suspension in the air and where it is late night even in broad daylight.Opportunity then is in very serious trouble, since its functionality depends on batteries that are recharged through solar panels and that if they were to discharge totally could mark the end of its glorious mission. Participants in this teleconference will be: John Callas, Opportunity project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Rich Zurek, Mars Program Office chief scientist at JPL Jim Watzin, Mars Exploration program director at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. Dave Lavery, program executive at NASA headquarters for the Opportunity and Curiosity rovers As usual I will do my best to post the recording of the conference as soon as possible. This post has been automatically translated. See the original post here.

This evening, at 19:30 Italian time, NASA held a conference call to explain the recent development of a huge sandstorm that is affecting the site where Opportunity is operating but may soon extend to the entire planet!Also, since midnight yesterday all communication with Opportunity has been lost… Participating in this conference call were: John Callas, Opportunity project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Rich Zurek, Mars Program Office chief scientist at JPL Jim Watzin, Mars Exploration program director at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C. Dave Lavery, program executive at NASA headquarters for the Opportunity and Curiosity rovers This post has been automatically translated. See the original post here.

Since midnight yesterday all communication with Opportunity has been lost. NASA team is not yet desperate to re-establish communications, but certainly the rover batteries have dropped in power to the point that it triggers an emergency procedure that turns off Opportunity (except the internal clock) and turns it back on at regular intervals to check the state of charge of the batteries.If the battery charge drops to the point that it can no longer power the internal clock it will be the end of the mission. This post has been automatically translated. See the original post here.