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NASA's Curiosity Mars rover finally makes it to Mount Sharp

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Cape Canaveral, Fla. NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has arrived at the base of a mountain of layered rock that scientists suspect holds clues about whether the planet most like Earth in the solar system had the ingredients to support and preserve signs of microbial life.

The 1-ton rover touched down inside an ancient impact basin in August 2012. It quickly discovered a region inside the Gale Crater landing site that was chemically and geologically suited for the same kind of rock-eating microbes commonly found on Earth.

With the primary goal of the mission met, scientists set about the more daunting task of finding environmental niches that not only could have hosted life, but also preserved signs of its existence - a tricky prospect since the same processes that make rock tend to destroy organic carbon.

Scientists figured their best chance for success lay inside rocks on Mount Sharp, a 3-mile high mountain rising from the center of Gale Crater.

After 18 months of driving, scientists on Thursday announced that Curiosity had arrived at the base of Mount Sharp ahead of schedule, thanks to a somewhat serendipitous decision to take an alternative path that would be gentler on the rover's damaged wheels.

Within two weeks, Curiosity will reach an outcrop of rock called Pahrump Hills, where the first drill samples of Mount Sharp real estate will be made, California Institute of Technology geologist John Grotzinger told reporters on a conference call on Thursday.

Scientists previously expected to cross the boundary between the cratered plains of Gale Crater and the relatively smooth rocks of Mount Sharp in a region called Murray Buttes.

"Curiously, because of the wheel damage it drove us on a pathway further south to be safer to the wheels and once we got to the location ... we recognized that in fact this was an even better place to go across the boundary than it would be to keep traveling toward Murray Buttes," Grotzinger said.

The decision to stop driving and start drilling should please a NASA oversight panel that earlier this month criticized the Curiosity team for short-changing the mission's science goals.

"When the senior review proposal was written in February and March the base of Mount Sharp looked kilometers away. In reality, we really cut out some of the drive time ... We're going to be starting to do much more science along the way," said Jim Green, director of NASA's planetary science division.

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NASA's Curiosity Mars rover finally makes it to Mount Sharp

NASA's Mars Curiosity Rover Arrives At Martian Mountain

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Guy Webster, DC Agle and Dwayne Brown, NASA

NASAs Mars Curiosity rover has reached the Red Planets Mount Sharp, a Mount-Rainier-size mountain at the center of the vast Gale Crater and the rover missions long-term prime destination.

Curiosity now will begin a new chapter from an already outstanding introduction to the world, said Jim Green, director of NASAs Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. After a historic and innovative landing along with its successful science discoveries, the scientific sequel is upon us.

Curiositys trek up the mountain will begin with an examination of the mountains lower slopes. The rover is starting this process at an entry point near an outcrop called Pahrump Hills, rather than continuing on to the previously-planned, further entry point known as Murray Buttes. Both entry points lay along a boundary where the southern base layer of the mountain meets crater-floor deposits washed down from the craters northern rim.

It has been a long but historic journey to this Martian mountain, said Curiosity Project Scientist John Grotzinger of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. The nature of the terrain at Pahrump Hills and just beyond it is a better place than Murray Buttes to learn about the significance of this contact. The exposures at the contact are better due to greater topographic relief.

[ Watch the Video: Curiosity Rover Report: We made it! Curiosity Reaches Mount Sharp ]

The decision to head uphill sooner, instead of continuing to Murray Buttes, also draws from improved understanding of the regions geography provided by the rovers examinations of several outcrops during the past year. Curiosity currently is positioned at the base of the mountain along a pale, distinctive geological feature called the Murray formation. Compared to neighboring crater-floor terrain, the rock of the Murray formation is softer and does not preserve impact scars, as well. As viewed from orbit, it is not as well-layered as other units at the base of Mount Sharp.

Curiosity made its first close-up study last month of two Murray formation outcrops, both revealing notable differences from the terrain explored by Curiosity during the past year. The first outcrop, called Bonanza King, proved too unstable for drilling, but was examined by the rovers instruments and determined to have high silicon content. A second outcrop, examined with the rovers telephoto Mast Camera, revealed a fine-grained, platy surface laced with sulfate-filled veins.

While some of these terrain differences are not apparent in observations made by NASAs Mars orbiters, the rover team still relies heavily on images taken by the agencys Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) to plan Curiositys travel routes and locations for study.

For example, MRO images helped the rover team locate mesas that are over 60 feet (18 meters) tall in an area of terrain shortly beyond Pahrump Hills, which reveal an exposure of the Murray formation uphill and toward the south. The team plans to use Curiositys drill to acquire a sample from this site for analysis by instruments inside the rover. The site lies at the southern end of a valley Curiosity will enter this week from the north.

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NASA's Mars Curiosity Rover Arrives At Martian Mountain

NASA Identifying Candidate Asteroids For Redirect Mission

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NASA Headquarters

NASA is on the hunt to add potential candidate target asteroids for the agencys Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM). The robotic mission will identify, capture and redirect a near-Earth asteroid to a stable orbit around the moon. In the 2020s, astronauts will explore the asteroid and return to Earth with samples. This will test and advance new technologies and spaceflight experience needed to take humans to Mars in the 2030s.

NASA has two options for robotic asteroid capture. One concept would capture a small asteroid in its native orbit the natural orbit in which it is found. The other would retrieve a boulder from a larger asteroid. NASA will decide between the capture options in December and hold a Mission Concept Review in early 2015, which will further refine the design of the mission.

A lean, agile team of NASA engineers are testing the two concepts, capitalizing on technology and engineering work already underway at NASA. Four industry teams selected through NASAs recent Broad Agency Announcement also are developing concepts to either enhance this work or provide alternative ideas.

NASAs plans to announce the target asteroid for the mission approximately a year before launching the robotic spacecraft, scheduled for no earlier than 2019. To date NASA has identified three valid candidates for the small asteroid concept and three for the boulder concept. The agency expects to identify one or two additional candidates each year that could become valid targets for the mission.

Before an asteroid can make the valid candidate list, NASAs ARM target identification criteria must be met. Scientists must determine the rotation, shape, precise orbit, spectral class, and most importantly, size of the asteroid itself. With the asteroid millions of miles away from Earth, defining these factors requires a series of observations and analysis.

Telescopes on Earth and in space contribute to the observation, tracking and characterization of an asteroid. The process begins by detecting Near Earth Objects (NEOs) and starting to track their orbits. Ground observatories first scan an area in the sky to detect an object moving across the background of stationary stars and report its position in relation to them. The International Astronomical Union Minor Planet Center collects the resulting data and determines if the object has already been identified. If classified as a new object, scientists will be able to have a rough orbit and estimate of the size of the object within a day or two of the initial discovery.

Detecting an asteroid isnt enough to conclude it could be a good candidate for NASAs asteroid mission. Scientists need to further understand an asteroids shape, size, spin rate, and even surface features when picking a candidate. The best way to precisely measure these characteristics is with interplanetary radar, but only if the object is close enough to Earth to be observed this way. When the asteroid is not within the range of radar, the NASAs Spitzer Space Telescope can contribute to the data collection using infrared imaging if the object can be seen by it.

Infrared light is a better indicator of an objects true size because by measuring its infrared glow the amount of solar heating the entire object re-radiates can be determined. Combining the data collected by Spitzer and ground observatories allows an asteroids density and mass to be more precisely estimated. Spitzers infrared imaging has enabled NASA to determine the size of two ARM candidates thus far.

The three valid candidates so far for the small asteroid concept are 2009 BD, 2011 MD and 2013 EC20. The size of 2009 BD is estimated to be roughly 4 meters (13 feet) in size, while 2011 MD is estimated to be approximately 6 meters (20 feet). These sizes are inferred by data provided by the Spitzer observatory. 2013 EC20 is about 2 meters (7 feet) in size, as determined by radar imaging.

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NASA Identifying Candidate Asteroids For Redirect Mission


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