Planets, Mars | featured news

Obama said the successful landing of Curiosity -- "the most sophisticated roving laboratory ever to land on another planet" -- is "an unprecedented feat of technology that will stand as a point of national pride far into the future." "It proves that even the longest of odds are no match for our unique blend of ingenuity and determination," Obama said.

The most high-tech rover NASA has ever designed landed safely on Mars early Monday, after a 352-million-mile journey and a harrowing plunge through the planet's atmosphere dubbed “7 Minutes of Terror.” Beforehand, with Curiosity on autopilot, engineers became spectators, anxiously waiting to see if Curiosity executed the routine as planned. "I'm not the nervous type, but I haven't been sleeping all that well the last week or so even though I'm still very confident," said engineer Steven Lee.

The rover Curiosity, nearing Mars, has sophisticated tools to help answer the question: Did the Red Planet ever sustain life — and could it today? In a matter of days, a geologist unlike any on Earth will venture into alien territory.

Through a labyrinth of hallways deep inside a 1960s-era building that has housed research that dates back to the early years of U.S. space travel, a group of scientists in white coats is stirring, mixing, measuring, brushing and, most important, tasting the end result of their cooking.

This panoramic shot of the surface of Mars shows an impact crater blasted billions of years ago - and the fresh tracks created by Nasa's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity. Use the zoom tool to see the view in more detail. The scene, which is made up of 817 images taken between December 2011 and May 2012, also includes the rover's own solar arrays and deck in the foreground. Its publication coincided with Opportunity completing its 3,000th day on Mars.

Member state delegations to the European Space Agency reiterated their desire to press ahead with missions to Mars in 2016 and 2018.

Scientists are confirming a recent and rare invasion from Mars: meteorite chunks from the red planet that fell in Morocco last July. This is only the fifth time scientists have chemically confirmed Martian meteorites that people witnessed falling. The small rock refugees were seen in a fireball in the sky six months ago, but they weren't discovered on the ground in North Africa until the end of December.

Firing on all engines, NASA's latest rover to Mars executed a course adjustment Wednesday that put it on track for a landing in August.

A NASA rover scouting for signs of past water on Mars has found the strongest evidence yet -- a vein of gypsum, a mineral deposited by water, protruding from an ancient rock.

The one-ton, car-sized Curiosity rocketed from Kennedy Space Center Saturday. The vehicle is on a two-year mission to determine whether life could have existed on Mars.