Science, Nasa | featured news

The NASA rover Curiosity has beamed back pictures of bedrock that suggest a fast-moving stream, possibly waist-deep, once flowed on Mars -- a find that the mission's chief scientist called exciting.

Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists aren't sure what to expect, but they think it's nearing interstellar space. In 1977, Jimmy Carter moved into the White House, "Star Wars" and "Saturday Night Fever" premiered in theaters and the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft launched from Florida's Cape Canaveral to explore the outer solar system.

Getting a six-wheeled car-size rover safely onto the surface of the red planet? Daunting, sure. But NASA did it with Curiosity. Sending humans on a mission to Mars? That requires overcoming even more outlandish obstacles.

David's time on Earth had come to a temporary end — and he was taking his family with him. As soon as the rover Curiosity dropped onto the Martian surface on Aug. 5, David and hundreds of his fellow scientists and engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory switched from Earth time to Mars time.

NASA's Curiosity rover is making global headlines as it travels uncharted territory on Mars, and it will venture into new realms back on Earth this week when it premieres a new will.i.am song. The Black Eyed Peas rapper's tune "Reach For The Stars" will be broadcast live from the surface of Mars, via Curiosity, at 1 p.m. PST (4 p.m. EDT/2000 GMT) on Tuesday to a news conference at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, the organization said in a statement on Monday.

The mission team also unveiled today a stunning 360-degree panorama of Curiosity's Gale Crater landing site, showing in crisp detail some of the landforms scientists want the six-wheeled robot to explore.

NASA's Curiosity rover on Wednesday left its first tracks on Mars, successfully completing a short test drive that showed it was ready to roll on longer treks for science investigations over the next two years.

NASA's Curiosity rover has zapped its first Martian rock, aiming its laser for the sake of science. During the target practice on Sunday, Curiosity fired 30 pulses at a nearby rock over a 10-second window, burning a small hole.

Curiosity phoned home throughout its daring and unprecedented landing sequence that night, giving its nervous handlers step-by-step status and health updates. The European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter recorded some of this chatter, and now we can hear what Curiosity had to say.

Scientists have located a galaxy that gives births to more stars in a day than ours does in a year. Astronomers used NASA's Chandra X-Ray telescope to spot this distant gigantic galaxy creating about 740 new stars a year. By comparison, our Milky Way galaxy spawns just about one new star each year.