Mastodawn

🚀🥴 Oh, look! #SpaceX is apparently worth a mere $780B according to #Morningstar, which is, like, only half of its #fantasy #IPO target. 😂 Because who needs reality when you're aiming for #Mars, right? 🌌✨
https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/morningstar-values-spacex-780-billion-half-its-ipo-target-2026-06-02/ #Valuation #HackerNews #ngated

3i/Atlas 59m ago

Mars Hid its Warm, Wet Crystals Underground
https://atlas.whatip.xyz/post.php?slug=mars-hid-its-warm-wet-crystals-underground
Latest: <p>The search for any sign of life on Mars continues
#underground #crystals #search #mars

Mars Hid its Warm, Wet Crystals Underground

The search for any sign of life on Mars continues. In the latest update, a new data release from Curiosity’s Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) - essentially the rover’s portable X-ray diffraction lab ...

Daniel Pomarède 1h ago

Stereo3D view captured three days ago by Perseverance with her Mastcam-Z science camera, somewhere in the expanses west of the rim of Jezero Crater.

To go 3D: eyes' lines of sight parallel, left image for left eye, right image for right eye.

Credit images: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU

#Mars #Perseverance #rover #Sol1875 #PerseveranceRover #NorthernRimCampaign #LacdeCharmes #space #astrodon #science #STEM #Percy #Mastcam #photography #Stereo3D #3D #stereoscopy

ilanthar 2h ago

Lentement mais sûrement...

Slowly but surely...

#map #carte #jdr #ttrpg #fantasy #Mars
#worldbuilding #elzevir #krita #alternatehistory #wip

Laborjournal 3h ago

Braucht Leben wirklich #Wasser, #Sauerstoff und erdähnliche Bedingungen? Vielleicht suchen wir zu engstirnig danach im #All. Henrik Müllers Reportage über exotische Biochemien, Titan, Europa und die Grenzen unseres Lebensbegriffs: 👉 https://www.laborjournal.de/rubric/hintergrund/hg/hg_26_05_02.php #Astrobiologie #Mars #Exoplanet

paulhammond5155 4h ago

ExoMars Rosalind Franklin Parachute Baked Sterile at ESTEC Ahead of 2028 Mars Mission

https://lemmy.world/post/47667349

ExoMars Rosalind Franklin Parachute Baked Sterile at ESTEC Ahead of 2028 Mars Mission - Lemmy.World

text ExoMars Rosalind Franklin Parachute Baked Sterile at ESTEC Ahead of 2028 Mars Mission by Robert Schreiber Berlin, Germany (SPX) May 04, 2026 A 35-metre diameter parachute destined to slow the ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover during its descent through the Martian atmosphere has undergone heat sterilisation at the European Space Agency’s technical centre in the Netherlands, completing a critical planetary protection milestone ahead of the mission’s 2028 launch. The parachute, weighing 74 kilograms and constructed primarily from nylon and Kevlar fabrics, will be the largest ever flown on Mars - or anywhere else in the Solar System outside of Earth. During entry, it must endure a six-minute dive through the thin Martian atmosphere before delivering the rover safely to the surface. Sterilisation was carried out in a specialised dry heater oven at ESA’s Life Support and Physical Sciences Laboratory at ESTEC in Noordwijk. The process required the parachute to reach 125 degrees Celsius and hold that temperature for 36 hours, preceded by a 50-hour preheating phase to ensure the heat penetrated the innermost folds of the tightly packed canopy. The parameters were established through multiple rounds of testing on exact replica parachutes, as no established procedure existed for the task. The sterilisation standard imposed on the parachute is exceptionally stringent. Under international planetary protection requirements, the hardware must be at least 10,000 times cleaner than a typical smartphone. The concern is twofold: terrestrial microbes hardy enough to survive interplanetary transit could interfere with the rover’s search for signs of life by causing false-positive detections, and planetary protection obligations require that Mars itself be shielded from biological contamination originating on Earth. The oven used for baking is housed inside an ISO Class 1 cleanroom at ESTEC - among the most contamination-controlled environments in Europe. All air in the facility is continuously processed through a two-stage filter system, and personnel entering the room must follow gowning procedures more rigorous than surgical standards and pass through an air shower to remove particulates. After cooling for several hours inside the cleanroom, the parachute was packaged by suited technicians and sealed inside a protective wrapping. It was then transported to Thales Alenia Space in Turin, Italy, where it will await integration with the spacecraft. The flight parachute passed a key deployment test the previous year, when a precise copy was released from a high-altitude balloon and successfully decelerated an ExoMars mock-up landing platform to a safe touchdown on Earth. The ExoMars Rosalind Franklin mission is scheduled for launch in 2028. The rover will spend more than 25 months in transit before arriving at Mars, where its primary objective is to drill beneath the Martian surface in search of chemical or biological indicators of past or present life.

e-Planets 5h ago

« Pint of Science » est un événement mondial durant lequel les scientifiques peuvent vulgariser leurs thématiques de recherche auprès du grand-public… dans des contextes plus que conviviaux, puisque l’événement se déroule dans des bars, autour de boissons (à consommer avec modération !).

Le 18 mai 2026, dans le bar lyonnais « House of Bears », l’équipe d’e-planets était représentée par Maxime Pineau et Victor Tricaud (en remplacement d’Élise Clavé) qui ont bien évidemment parlé de notre planète préférée : Mars !

Maxime a présenté l’évolution de notre vision de la planète rouge : depuis les dieux antiques jusqu’aux données des missions spatiales modernes, en passant par les grands épisodes des premières observations télescopiques.

L’audience, laissée sur sa faim par une grande question laissée en suspens, à savoir « Mars habitable, mais habitée par le passé ? », n’attendait plus que la seconde présentation pour être éclairée…

Deuxième sujet de la soirée présenté par Victor : la mission de la NASA Mars2020 et son fameux rover Perseverance. La clientèle du bar a pu découvrir la merveille technologique qu’est ce rover et les grands enjeux de cette mission dans le cratère Jezero. Cette soirée de vulgarisation s’est terminée par un top 3 des grandes découvertes de la mission : du quartz sur Mars, un lac dans le cratère Jezero à l’histoire complexe et tumultueuse, et enfin, des roches avec des “tâches de léopard” montrant de potentielles biosignatures !

Mais alors Victor, Mars habitable, oui, mais Mars habitée ? « Pour le savoir, il faudra ramener ces précieux échantillons prélevés par le rover sur Terre ! ».

Cette soirée Pint of Science s’est poursuivie par une longue séance de questions-réponses et discussions entre Maxime, Victor et les participants de l’événement.

Une soirée de pintes de science pleinement réussie, dans la joie et la bonne humeur: absolument à refaire !