mars

Get new Mars Curiosity Rover photos in your inbox

The photos and videos coming from NASA and the Curiosity Rover on Mars are truly stunning. It's fun, exciting, and even a little puzzling at times to see the landscape and how another planet so far away compares to Earth.

Both the official NASA and Mars Curiosity Twitter accounts are great sources to keep up on the latest news and photos coming from the brave little rover so far from home. But, we can't sit and watch Twitter all day long, making the chance of missing a photo a real possibility.

While browsing If This Then That shared … Read more

Get top dollar for iPhone trade-ins

Wednesday's Update pays top dollar to bring you the top stories:

Analysts are predicting that as many as 10 million iPhones could be sold if Apple launches it in September. That's because many reports are pointing to a Sept. 21 release date for the next model. So if you're planning on selling your old phone for cash, you should plan ahead to make the most money. Trade-in sites like eBay Instant Sale, NextWorth and Gazelle are already seeing an increase of visitors looking to sell an iPhone 4S or iPhone 4.

You can get more money for … Read more

Take a virtual tour of Mars on your iPhone or iPad

If you've been following the Curiosity rover's progress even a little, you've probably seen the cool 360-degree Mars panorama that hit the Web a couple days ago.

As CNET's Amanda Kooser pointed out, it's "about as close as you'll get to being there."

Now you can get even closer, virtually speaking. It turns out that the panorama works with gyroscopes, meaning that if you view it on your iPhone or iPad, you'll get a much more interactive experience.

Stop listening to me describe it and go do it:

Open up the … Read more

Rover software updated, first driving tests on tap

Engineers successfully updated the Curiosity rover's computer software over the weekend and plan initial tests, within the next week or so, of the mobile science lab's ability to drive across the martian terrain, project officials said today.

"We couldn't be happier with the success of the mission so far," said Ashwin Vasavada, Mars Science Laboratory deputy project scientist. "Most significantly at this point, since we're still in our commissioning phase, we have a fully healthy rover and payload."

Mission manager Mike Watkins said that with the successful installation of surface-optimized software, version … Read more

Take the rover for a spin around a virtual Mars crater

We've been exploring ways to immerse yourself in Mars without having to sign up for an experimental one-way space trip. You can play with a photo panorama, but you can also put yourself in Curiosity's shoes and take the rover for a crater ride.

NASA's Explore Mars: Free Drive online experience puts you in command of the rover in a virtual version of the Gale Crater on Mars.

It's fun to watch the rover's wheels react to the landscape. I made mine do doughnuts. There are plenty of points of interest available for exploration, including the landing site, a series of fractures, a canyon, sand dunes, and a phyllosilicate trough.… Read more

Geology rocks! New photos from Mars (pictures)

It was just a week ago NASA's Mars rover Curiosity landed on the surface of Mars, and began transmitting high-resolution images of the stunning landscape from the landing site inside the Gale Crater. New color mosaics from the Mastcam show the geological environment around the rover, including layers of cobbles and pebbles embedded in a finer matrix of material, as well as a network of fluvial valleys believed to have been formed by water erosion. Click the images to see the full-sized photos from the surface of Mars. (And when you're done viewing a full-size version, scroll to … Read more

Obama to NASA: I want to know about Martians right away

With the Olympics still in midstride, and with the arrival of the always exciting NFL exhibition games, you might perhaps have missed that a spacecraft landed on Mars a few days ago to express our human curiosity.

President Obama, however, has made it very clear that, should little beings be found out there, they will immediately become his top priority.

Indeed, in a phone call today with the Curiosity team, the President revealed that the first question he is being asked about the mission is whether Martians have already been found.

One can imagine that, even if they had been … Read more

Interactive Mars panorama: As close as you'll get to being there

My brother sometimes threatens to run away and join the eventual one-way human mission to Mars. He can get a better idea of what would await him by checking out an interactive, panoramic view of the planet as seen by the Curiosity rover.

Panographer Andrew Bodrov posted an explorable image of Mars to 360Cities. This is what it would it would look like if Google had been able to attach a Street View camera to the rover.

You can zoom and rotate the image to get a detailed, immersive view of the rocky surface, horizon, and the rover itself. It's the next best thing to being there, but without the crushing cold and lack of oxygen.… Read more

Slow, but rugged, Curiosity's computer was built for Mars

The electronic brain controlling NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has far less horsepower than the microchips typically found in a modern smart phone.

But the RAD750 PowerPC microprocessor built into the rover's redundant flight computers has one enormous advantage: It was engineered to be virtually impervious to high-energy cosmic rays that would quickly cripple an iPhone or laptop computer.

The radiation-hardened single-card computers, built by BAE Systems in Manassas, Va., are designed to withstand charged ions and protons in interplanetary space or on the surface of Mars that can physically damage integrated circuits or trigger so-called "bit flips&… Read more