Hasta La Gadget!

The Curiosity Rover may have landed safely on the surface of Mars, but like all good things, it’s not invulnerable to completely bogus DMCA takedown requests. More »

A group of scientists have put the world on alert that a massive solar flare could happen within the next two years that could harm power grids, communications, and satellites around the world. The scientists say that the risk of a massive flare that could harm systems on the earth increase as the sun reaches the peak of its 10-year activity cycle. The scientists say “governments are taking it very seriously.”

According to scientist Mike Hapgood, who specializes in space weather at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, solar storms are more commonly being placed on national risk registers used for disaster planning along with events such as tsunamis and volcanic eruption. Hapgood warns that while solar flares are rare, when they happen consequences on earth could be catastrophic. Magnetically-charged plasma thrown from the surface of the sun can have a significant impact on earth.

The chance of a massive solar storm is about 12% for every decade. According to the scientists, the last major solar storm was over 150 years ago, and the odds say that a massive solar storm occurs approximately once in every 100 years. The fear is that these massive solar storms could melt transformers within national power grids, destroy or damage satellites, knockout radio communications, and more.

The largest solar storm ever recorded happened in 1859. British astronomer Richard Carrington observed a large solar eruption, and the geomagnetic storms caused by the eruption took 17 hours to reach the earth. According to reports from 1859, the solar storm is so massive that the aurora borealis was seen as far south as the Caribbean. Had such an event happened in modern times with satellites in orbit, the consequences could have been disastrous.

[via Skynews]

Scientists warn massive solar flare could harm power grid and satellites is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Curiosity’s main cameras may not be due to come online until they’ve unfurled later this week, but the Mars rover is already beaming back better shots now that it has whipped off the dust protection. The first batch of photos from the freshly-landed rover were fuzzy – thanks to a combination of dust whirls from the Skycrane lander and the protective covers on the cameras themselves – but as things settle and Curiosity whirs into life, the images are getting a lot clearer.

So far there’s only one new image from the rover, limited by the need to route any transmissions via the Odyssey satellite in orbit around the red planet. Odyssey took up position around Mars in 2001, and was expected to be the weak spot in the Curiosity landing: with systems already failing in places, it could have left the NASA groundcrew at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory temporarily blind as to whether the rover had made it to the surface.

Thankfully those pieces slotted into place, giving Curiosity time to blast one last, higher-resolution shot back home. In the picture, taken by a rear “Hazcam” – a monochrome, fish-eye camera mounted on one corner of the rover, and intended to be used for guidance – you can see the curve of the horizon and one of Curiosity’s wheels. The white, ridged object in the lower right corner is believed to be part of the assembly for the dust cover itself.

Full color images are due to be collected later in the week, when the 1600 x 1200 primary cameras come online. They’re mounted on the head of the rover, which is currently tucked away as part of the landing procedure, and can shoot both stills and 10fps 720p HD video footage.

NASA Curiosity sends back more detailed view of Mars is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Safely landed on Mars, NASA‘s Curiosity rover dwarfs its robot predecessors by a factor of 2:1, though we’ll need to wait for it to take off its lenscap before we get a proper look at the Martian surface. Measuring 3m long, the six-wheeled Curiosity is double the size of the previous Exploration rovers and uses its heft to carry fifteen times heftier instruments with which it will check for evidence of life on the red planet.

In fact, Curiosity is five times heavier than previous landers, and – as the group photo above shows – is more akin to a small car than the human-scaled rovers that came before it. Altogether, that has allowed for equipment of the sort never before taken to Mars: Curiosity carries a laser that can check out the elemental composition of distant rocks, for instance, while close-up testing is done by loading an internally-carried lab with samples gathered up by a robotic arm.

First step, however, will be orienting Curiosity and gathering some photos for the album. The first batch of shots already sent back to Earth are comparatively low-resolution, since they were taken with the so-called “Hazcam”; in contrast, the two main cameras will grab full color 1600 x 1200 stills (or 720p video at 10fps), but will only be operation when the “head” of the rover is unpacked and extended.

At that point, the Hazcams – of which there are four, at the extremes of the rover – will be used for autonomous navigation, building a 3D perspective of the environment around Curiosity and its robotic arm. There are seventeen cameras in total, spanning visible light through more specific purposes depending on the scientific intention.

NASA expects the Curiosity mission to last two years, though it’s possible the rover could outlast its original estimates. The last Exploration rover, “Opportunity”, recently woke from its fifth winter to continue trundling around Mars.

There’s more on the “7 minutes of terror” process of landing Curiosity on Mars in our full SlashGear 101 on the subject. With transmission delays back to Earth amounting to around fourteen minutes, and the landing itself taking roughly half that time, the entire process had to be automated as there was no way for it to be manually remote-controlled.

NASA’s Curiosity is biggest Mars mission yet (in more ways than one) is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Less than an hour ago, NASA accomplished a new feat of engineering supremacy with the landing of the Curiosity Rover to the surface of Mars – and the first photos from that craft have been sent back to Earth already. As it was revealed about and around the landing sequence for this craft, the delay between the tech on the planet now and us here at home on Earth is about 14 minutes. What we’re seeing now are photos taken from the Curiosity River and projected back to our planet in less than a half hour – fresh as we’ve ever seen them!

What you’re seeing are some rather dusty images straight from the Curiosity Rover as it’s touched down on the planet Mars. These are the first bits of data we’ll be receiving from the planet that’ll be able to be made sense of by the masses. For all information regarding new forms of life, little green men, and signs of water, we’ll have to wait a bit longer.

You’re seeing shadows of the rover as it sits on the surface of Mars as well as images of its wheels. There are only a few small images at the moment, but more are certainly on the way from NASA very soon. The reason the view right now is so very dusty is that the area surrounding the craft is essentially one massive cloud of debris blown up by the landing sequence. Subsequent shots of the surface of the planet will be clearer – we hope!

Have a peek here at these rather tiny images and stick around as much more lovely versions and future shots appear. And have a toast for NASA – we’ve just lived through history!

[via Mars]

First Mars photos projected back from Curiosity Rover is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.