Tag: Mars

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Don’t Miss the Moon’s Rare Dance with Mars on January 13, 2025

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the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Ridgewood NJ, Skygazers, mark your calendars! On the evening of Monday, January 13, 2025, a rare celestial event will grace the night sky as the moon passes directly in front of Mars, temporarily obscuring the planet from view in an event known as a lunar occultation. This stunning phenomenon offers a unique opportunity for observers across much of North America to witness a cosmic alignment that happens, on average, once every 14 years at a specific location.

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SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn Mission Launches: Civilian Crew Set to Break New Ground in Space Exploration

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the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Ridgewood NJ, early yesterday morning, SpaceX successfully launched its groundbreaking Polaris Dawn mission from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This mission is set to push the boundaries of space exploration, taking its four-person civilian crew an astounding 870 miles above Earth—farther than any human has traveled since NASA’s Apollo missions to the moon. At over three times the height of the International Space Station, this journey marks a historic leap for private space travel.

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Upcoming Planet Parade: How to Catch a Glimpse of Six Planets at Dawn

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A Rare Celestial Event

the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Ridgewood NJ, look up in the sky on June 3. Get ready for a spectacular celestial event! A “planet parade” is set to take place, where six planets will appear to align in the sky near dawn. However, only three of these planets will be visible to the naked eye. Despite sounding extraordinary, such alignments are more common than you might think.

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Elon Musk, ‘I’d like to die on Mars, just not on impact’

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the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Ridgewood NJ, Relativity Space and Impulse Space are launching a mission that will land on the surface of Mars in less than three years. It will be the first-ever commercial mission to Mars. Relativity’s Terran R rocket, which will carry the mission, will be more powerful than SpaceX’s Falcon 9. Impulse is developing space thrusters that use a less toxic alternative to the fuels typically used by spacecraft.

SpaceX is Elon Musk’s company who famously said ,’I’d like to die on Mars, just not on impact’ during a keynote address in 2013.

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NASA is Recruiting for Yearlong Simulated Mars Mission

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the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Mars, Mars is calling! NASA is seeking applicants for participation as a crew member during the first one-year analog mission in a habitat to simulate life on a distant world, set to begin in Fall 2022.

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Perseverance Mars rover to collect its first-ever sample of Martian rock

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the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Mars, NASA is making final preparations for its Perseverance Mars rover to collect its first-ever sample of Martian rock, which future planned missions will transport to Earth. The six-wheeled geologist is searching for a scientifically interesting target in a part of Jezero Crater called the “Cratered Floor Fractured Rough.”

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NASA’s Curiosity Rover Captures Clouds on Mars

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the staff of the Ridgewood blog

MARS, the science team is studying the clouds, which arrived earlier and formed higher than expected, to learn more about the Red Planet.

Cloudy days are rare in the thin, dry atmosphere of Mars. Clouds are typically found at the planet’s equator in the coldest time of year, when Mars is the farthest from the Sun in its oval-shaped orbit. But one full Martian year ago – two Earth years – scientists noticed clouds forming over NASA’s Curiosity rover earlier than expected.

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NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Succeeds in Historic First Flight

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the staff of the Ridgewood blog

MARS, Monday, NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter became the first aircraft in history to make a powered, controlled flight on another planet. The Ingenuity team at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California confirmed the flight succeeded after receiving data from the helicopter via NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover at 6:46 a.m. EDT (3:46 a.m. PDT).

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NASA Postpones Ingenuity Mars Helicopter’s first experimental flight

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the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Ridgewood NJ, based on data from the Ingenuity Mars helicopter that arrived late Friday night, NASA has chosen to reschedule the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter’s first experimental flight to no earlier than April 14.

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NASA Releases Video Last Week’s Mars landing

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the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Ridgewood NJ, NASA has released a video showing several viewpoints of last week’s Mars landing. The video shows the descent starting from the release of the parachute. About 30GB of data was captured during the descent. The footage will be used to sharpen knowledge about future entry, descent, and landing technology. One problem identified by the footage is the large amount of dust that was kicked up by the descent stage, which will be an important issue for larger spacecraft. The video of the landing is available in the article.

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NASA’s Mars Rover Successfully Touches Down on Mars

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the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Ridgewood NJ, Perseverance successfully landed on Mars on Thursday at around 3:55 PM ET. It is the fifth rover to land on Mars. The rover will now begin its two-year mission to roam the surface of the planet and search for signs of ancient microbial life. It will spend the next few days taking pictures of the Jezero Crater, where it landed. Jezero’s lakebed is one of the best places to look for biosignatures. The rover is also carrying Ingenuity, a small helicopter, which could be the first controlled aircraft on another planet. Earlier this month, spacecraft launched from the United Arab Emirates and China reached Mars and moved into orbit around the planet.

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STARTING WEDNESDAY: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn to align in night sky

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Iris Hermosillo
8:37 AM, Jan 18, 2016

Get ready for a spectacular sight in our skies this week.

For the first time since 2005, the planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn will all be visible at the same time.

According to EarthSky.org , the 5 planets will be visible just before dawn starting Wednesday, January 20, 2016.

Set your alarms early as Mercury, which is the fifth planet to join the group, is set to rise just before 6:50 a.m. on Wednesday.

Our sunrise that day happens at 7:32 a.m.

https://www.abc15.com/news/state/starting-wednesday-mercury-venus-mars-jupiter-saturn-to-align-in-night-sky

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Nasa says Mars mystery rock that ‘appeared’ from nowhere is ‘like nothing we’ve seen before’

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Nasa says Mars mystery rock that ‘appeared’ from nowhere is ‘like nothing we’ve seen before’

A mysterious rock which appeared in front of the Opportunity rover is “like nothing we’ve ever seen before”, according to Mars exploration scientists at Nasa.

Experts said they were “completely confused” by both the origins and makeup of the object, which is currently being investigated by Opportunity’s various measuring instruments.

Astronomers noticed the new rock had “appeared” without any explanation on an outcrop which had been empty just days earlier. The rover has been stuck photographing the same region of Mars for more than a month due to bad weather, with scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California monitoring the images it sends.

Nasa issued a Mars status report entitled “encountering a surprise”, and lead Mars Exploration rover scientist Steve Squyres told a JPL event it seems the planet literally “keeps throwing new things at us”.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/nasa-says-mars-mystery-rock-that-appeared-from-now