Y. The rover set a single-day martian driving record, covering
154. The spacecraft also carried the European Space
Agency's (ESA) Huygens probe, which recently descended to the surface
of Saturn's largest moon , Titan.

stereoscopic euv

NASA's Twin Mars Rovers Continue Exploration

The first 90 meters (295 feet) of each drive was
performed in blind-drive mode, following a route planners created from stereo
images from the rover and maps created from orbital imagery."
The Earth's aurora is very sensitive to the direction of the solar
wind's magnetic field; when the solar wind field points southward, it
can interconnect with the mainly northward Earth's magnetic field,
allowing the solar wind to affect its magnetosphere directly.

terraformed martian

"It looks as if you took volcanic rocks that were ground into little
grains, and then formed a layered rock with them cemented together by a
substantial quantity of magnesium-sulfate salt," Squyres said.

terraformed msss

We will be working for the next few months
to analyze the performance of the heat shield," Szalai said.nasa.

msss countdowns

28. Cassini, launched in
1997, carries 12 scientific instruments to image the saturnian system
at infrared, ultraviolet and visible wavelengths and with radar, and
to sample directly the charged particle, dust, neutral gas and plasma
wave environments.C. NASA 's Hubble
Space Telescope is a cooperative program with the European Space
Agency and is operated by the Space Telescope Science Institute in
Baltimore.nasa.

terran visualise

visualise countdowns

Christine Szalai, a spacecraft engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif.

salvaging orrery

65 meters (507.6 feet).

orrery countdowns

Steve Squyres of Cornell University, Ithaca, N. "This may be what the bones of this
mountain are really made of; it gives us even more compelling evidence for
water playing a major role for altering the rocks here," Squyres added.
Dr.

sunside cyan

Opportunity used its microscopic imager last week to examine a cross
section of the heat shield that protected the spacecraft as it slammed into
Mars' atmosphere ., said, "We are examining the images to
determine the depth of charring in the heat shield material .html

For information about NASA and agency programs on the Internet, visit:
http: //www.
For more information contact Joe Fohn, 210-522-4630, or
jfohn@swri.

salvaging stereoscopic

We know there's a
lot of data there, but we still need to analyze it," said Ethiraj Venkatapathy
of NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
However, while Earth's auroras are strongly influenced by the
direction of the solar-wind magnetic field, Saturn's appear to be
independent of that orientation.

darian altimeter

WASHINGTON , NASA's Spirit rover found a new class
of water-affected rock, while its twin, Opportunity, finished inspecting its
own heat shield and set a new martian driving record. It could come from liquid water with magnesium sulfate salt
dissolved in it, percolating through the rock, then evaporating and leaving
the salt behind. Two days later, it drove even farther,
156.
At Jupiter, the energization is derived mainly from planetary
rotation, while the particles originate primarily in the atmosphere of
the planet and its moons (principally Io), with the solar wind playing
an apparently minor role. For the latest images and information about the
Cassini-Huygens mission, visit http://saturn .

Mars is the 4th planet out from the sun.

sunside darian

"Where did the
salt come from? We have two working hypotheses we want to check by examining
more rocks. In the initial
look, we didn't see any surprises."

For Images and additional information about the rovers on the Internet,
visit:
http: //www. "One big surprise was that the magnetic
field imbedded in the solar wind plays a smaller role at Saturn.

msss terran

The rock is in the Gusev Crater,
where Spirit landed 13 months ago. Either
case involves water," he said.
"The terrain we're crossing is so flat we can see a long way ahead," said
JPL rover planner Frank Hartman, who teamed with Jeff Biesiadecki to plot the
drive.nasa. The resulting measurements confirmed that, like
Earth, Saturn's magnetosphere is actively driven by the solar wind . Near
Saturn, the solar wind's magnetic field is rarely northward or
southward, and its Earth -like role is not evident.jpl.

darian altimeter

The rock's texture appears to be sand-size grains
coated with a material loosely binding the rock together. This is the first time experts have been able to examine a
heat shield after it entered another planet's atmosphere.gov and
http://www.

terran salvaging

Ralf Gellert, of Max-Planck -Institut fur Chemie, Mainz, Germany, said,
"Usually when we have seen high levels of sulfur in rocks at Gusev, it has
been at the very surface.4 feet) on Jan.
At Earth, the auroral particles can originate both in the solar
wind and in the Earth's atmosphere.
In a paper published in the February 17 issue of the journal
Nature, a team of scientists led by Dr.

altimeter cyan

"
Observations by Spirit show the rock contains significant amounts of the
minerals olivine, pyroxene and magnetite, all of which are common in some
types of volcanic rock.
Since leaving the heat shield, Opportunity has been traveling south to
explore new sites.
"The auroras of Earth and Saturn both are driven by shock waves in
the solar wind, and induced electric fields," said Crary, a senior
research scientist in SwRI's Space Science and Engineering Division
and a Cassini co-Investigator. But like the Earth ,
observations from Cassini show dramatic changes in the aurora that
were directly driven by solar wind shocks.
Solar wind observations upstream of Saturn relied primarily on the
Cassini Plasma Spectrometer (CAPS), developed by an international team
headed by Dr. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory , operated by the
California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission
for NASA 's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.

nssdc euv

"This is probably the most interesting and important rock Spirit has
examined," said Dr. The sulfur enrichment at the surface is
correlated with the amount of magnesium, which points to magnesium sulfate. Frank Crary, a physicist at
Southwest Research Institute(R) (SwRI(R)) in San Antonio, Texas,
reports that Saturn's aurora responds to the solar wind in a
surprisingly different way from that of either Earth or Jupiter. SwRI researchers are also active on
Cassini's Imaging Science Subsystem, Composite Infrared Spectrometer
and Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer teams.

moons mars

The rock, dubbed "Peace," is an
exposure of bedrock in the Columbia Hills . The unusual thing about this rock is that deep
inside; the sulfur is still very high.gov/cassini

SwRI is an independent, nonprofit, applied research and
development organization based in San Antonio, with more than 2,800
employees and an annual research volume of more than $399 million .

homogenous terraforming

Spirit's rock
abrasion tool dug about 1 centimeter (0.gov

Saturn's Aurora Surprises Team Led By SwRI

nasa.

Sites in this category deal with this planet, and its moons.

terraforming darian

Or it could come from weathering by dilute sulfuric acid
reacting with magnesium-rich minerals that were already in the rock.
"We've identified each broken piece of the heat shield. The rest was
autonomous driving , with the rover choosing its own route to avoid any hazards
it perceived in stereo images taken along the way.gov/vision/universe/solarsystem/mer_main. They then gain energy indirectly
from the interaction of the solar wind with the Earth's magnetic
field, with most of the acceleration occurring at relatively low
altitudes of a few thousand kilometers above the aurora.
The team used the Hubble Space Telescope and instruments on board
NASA's Cassini spacecraft to measure solar wind interactions during a
one -month period in 2004 as Cassini approached Saturn for a multi-year
orbital mission. David Young of SwRI.

terran martian

55 meters (513. "Opportunity has paused for some trenching, but in a few days we'll put
the pedal to the metal again.
Cassini-Huygens is a cooperative mission of NASA, ESA and the
Italian Space Agency.

msss sunside

The rovers successfully
completed their three-month primary missions in April 2004 and are working on
extended exploration missions.
Peace contains more sulfate salt than any other rock Spirit has examined.4 inch) deep in two hours.

Business Editors/Technology Writers /Science Writers

SAN ANTONIO----Scientists have long
known that energetic bursts of charged particles create bright auroras
in the upper atmosphere of the Earth's polar regions and also in the
polar regions of Jupiter and Saturn.

homogenous orrery

org.

terraforming msss

,
principal investigator for the rovers. Engineers expect the
findings to aid design for future missions.

terraformed colonization

---

- - kjjkjk

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