Timekeeping on Mars

The Tianwen-1 mission – China's most ambitious attempt yet at interplanetary exploration – aims to send an orbiter, lander and rover to the red planet.

Written by Melissa Rice, Professor of Planetary Science at Western Washington University

Written by Lucy Lim, Planetary Scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

Earth planning date: Monday, Jan. 27, 2025

NASA's Ingenuity helicopter, which flew on Mars in April 2021, became the first aircraft to achieve powered, controlled flight on a planet other than Earth.

NASA's Perseverance Mars rover was treated to a 'googly eye' solar eclipse on Sept. 30 as the planet's moon Phobos passed in front of the sun.

Earth planning date: Monday, Nov. 4, 2024 After a spooky week last week, it's great to see all our weekend plans succeed as planned! We don't take success for granted as a rover going on 13 years. With all of the science at our fingertips and all the battery power we could need, the team […]

The Sun resembled a 'googly eye' during a recent solar eclipse on Mars captured by NASA.

After discovering and sampling the "leopard spots" of "Bright Angel," it became apparent that Perseverance's journey of discovery in this region was not yet finished. Approximately 20 sols (Martian days) after driving south across Neretva Vallis from Bright Angel, the rover discovered the enigmatic and unique red rocks of "Serpentine Rapids." At Serpentine Rapids, Perseverance […]

Curious sights in the Martian sky.

The ChemCam instrument, developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory, recently zapped its laser for the 1 millionth time on Mars. Sitting on top of NASA's Curiosity rover, ChemCam has been helping make groundbreaking discoveries since 2012.

Two new studies provide two new answers to the mystery of where Mars's water disappeared to.

It's dust-storm season on Mars! Over the past couple of weeks, as we ascended the Jezero Crater rim, our science team has monitored increasing dust in the atmosphere — typically highest around this time of the Martian year.

Earth planning date: Friday, Aug. 2, 2024 Prepare your party poppers, horns, and confetti! On Aug. 6 (EDT), after 4,265 Martian sols since Curiosity first landed in Gale Crater, the rover will be turning 12 years old. I still remember the excitement of watching Curiosity's landing back when I started high school. Now, as a […]

Earth planning date: Friday, June 7, 2024 Curiosity is going to have a busy 3-sol weekend. We have one more sol of intense contact science activities at this really beautiful and fascinating location before moving on. What makes this place so special? We are seeing a lot of variety in the rocks in terms of […]

Each of these companies will receive funding ranging from $200,000 to $300,000.

Earth planning date: Wednesday, May 1, 2024 Today's planning was a little out of the ordinary. Not in terms of the plan itself, Curiosity's team built an exciting plan utilizing much of its science toolkit. Today's plan was unusual rather due to my role as APXS PUDL Reverse Shadow (PUDL = Payload Uplink/Downlink Lead). While I normally staff […]

Could this mean that there's sign of life in Mars?

The Ingenuity Mars helicopter team met one last time on Tuesday (April 16) to oversee a transmission from the little rotorcraft.

NASA's plan to retrieve as many as 30 geological samples from Mars is getting a major rewrite, agency officials said on Monday. The initial plan, which would not return the samples to Earth until 2040, was deemed "too expensive" and "unacceptably too long."