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Christine Knudson Uses Earthly Experience to Study Martian Geology
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By NASA
Curiosity Navigation Curiosity Home Mission Overview Where is Curiosity? Mission Updates Science Overview Instruments Highlights Exploration Goals News and Features Multimedia Curiosity Raw Images Images Videos Audio Mosaics More Resources Mars Missions Mars Sample Return Mars Perseverance Rover Mars Curiosity Rover MAVEN Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Odyssey More Mars Missions Mars Home 2 min read
Sols 4536-4538: Dusty Martian Magnets
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image, used to inspect the magnet on its MAHLI (Mars Hand Lens Imager), a camera on the turret of tools at the end of the rover’s robotic arm. The main purpose of Curiosity’s MAHLI camera is to acquire close-up, high-resolution views of rocks and regolith in the field; it can focus on any target from about 0.8 inches (2.1 centimeters) to infinity. Curiosity used its Mast Camera (Mastcam) on Sept. 1, 2024 — Sol 4291, or Martian day 4,291 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — at 05:48:14 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS Written by Remington Free, Operations Systems Engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Earth planning date: Friday, May 9, 2025
I was on downlink today for SA-SPaH, our robotic arm team. We successfully completed a number of fun arm activities, including a DRT brushing and APXS observations of a bedrock target, and also completed a traverse of about 25 meters (about 82 feet). Exciting!
Today, our uplink team planned three sols of activities. On Sol 4536, we are using the arm to do some inspection imaging of the MAHLI magnet using Mastcam. This magnet allows us to determine whether or not the MAHLI cover has successfully opened or closed. These magnets accumulate a lot of Martian dust particles, so we periodically take imaging to inspect the quantity of dust and get a better understanding of the state of the hardware. I’ve included above an image of the MAHLI instrument, from our last inspection on Sol 4291. After the magnet inspection, we’ll do some more typical arm activities, which include some APXS placements, DRT brushing, and MAHLI imaging on targets of interest.
In this workspace, we are interested in targets characterizing the pale layered sulfate unit we’ve been driving on, as well as a target in the new ridge-forming unit. Beyond our arm activities, we’ll do additional science observations of the surface using Mastcam and ChemCam.
On Sol 4537, we’ll focus on driving! Prior to our drive, we’ll take some more scientific observations, including a Navcam cloud movie, Mastcam documentation of some geological units, and ChemCam LIBS on a ridge-forming unit. We have then planned a 21-meter drive (about 69 feet) to take us to a bedrock area of scientific interest. We’re excited because the terrain looks pretty benign, so we’re hoping it all goes smoothly!
Post-drive, we’ll take some Mastcam survey imaging of clasts and soils along the traverse. Finally on Sol 4538, we’ll aim our focus upwards and take a number of observations of the sky. We’ll start with a Navcam large dust-devil survey, a Mastcam tau measurement of the atmospheric optical depth, and a ChemCam passive sky observation to study atmospheric composition. Early the following morning, we’ll take some additional Navcam observations of clouds, and complete another Mastcam tau measurement of optical depth.
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Last Updated May 13, 2025 Related Terms
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NASA Study Reveals Venus Crust Surprise
This global view of the surface of Venus is centered at 180 degrees east longitude. Magellan synthetic aperture radar mosaics from the first cycle of Magellan mapping are mapped onto a computer-simulated globe to create this image. Data gaps are filled with Pioneer Venus Orbiter data, or a constant mid-range value. Simulated color is used to enhance small-scale structure. The simulated hues are based on color images recorded by the Soviet Venera 13 and 14 spacecraft. NASA/JPL-Caltech New details about the crust on Venus include some surprises about the geology of Earth’s hotter twin, according to new NASA-funded research that describes movements of the planet’s crust.
Scientists expected the outermost layer of Venus’ crust would grow thicker and thicker over time given its apparent lack of forces that would drive the crust back into the planet’s interior. But the paper, published in Nature Communications, proposes a crust metamorphism process based on rock density and melting cycles.
Earth’s rocky crust is made up of massive plates that slowly move, forming folds and faults in a process known as plate tectonics. For example, when two plates collide, the lighter plate slides on top of the denser one, forcing it downward into the layer beneath it, the mantle. This process, known as subduction, helps control the thickness of Earth’s crust. The rocks making up the bottom plate experience changes caused by increasing temperature and pressure as it sinks deeper into the interior of the planet. Those changes are known as metamorphism, which is one cause of volcanic activity.
In contrast, Venus has a crust that is all one piece, with no evidence for subduction caused by plate tectonics like on Earth, explained Justin Filiberto, deputy chief of NASA’s Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Division at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston and a co-author on the paper. The paper used modeling to determine that its crust is about 25 miles (40 kilometers) thick on average and at most 40 miles (65 kilometers) thick.
“That is surprisingly thin, given conditions on the planet,” said Filiberto. “It turns out that, according to our models, as the crust grows thicker, the bottom of it becomes so dense that it either breaks off and becomes part of the mantle or gets hot enough to melt.” So, while Venus has no moving plates, its crust does experience metamorphism. This finding is an important step toward understanding geological processes and evolution of the planet.
“This breaking off or melting can put water and elements back into the planet’s interior and help drive volcanic activity,” added Filiberto. “This gives us a new model for how material returns to the interior of the planet and another way to make lava and spur volcanic eruptions. It resets the playing field for how the geology, crust, and atmosphere on Venus work together.”
The next step, he added, is to gather direct data about Venus’ crust to test and refine these models. Several upcoming missions, including NASA’s DAVINCI (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging) and VERITAS (Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy) and, in partnership with ESA (European Space Agency), Envision, aim to study the planet’s surface and atmosphere in greater detail. These efforts could help confirm whether processes like metamorphism and recycling are actively shaping the Venusian crust today—and reveal how such activity may be tied to volcanic and atmospheric evolution.
“We don’t actually know how much volcanic activity is on Venus,” Filiberto said. “We assume there is a lot, and research says there should be, but we’d need more data to know for sure.”
Melissa Gaskill
NASA Johnson Space Center
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Victoria Segovia
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victoria.segovia@nasa.gov
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Last Updated May 09, 2025 Related Terms
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Inside a laboratory in the Space Systems Processing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, a payload implementation team member harvests ‘Outredgeous’ romaine lettuce growing in the Advanced Plant Habitat ground unit on Thursday, April 24, 2025. The harvest is part of the ground control work supporting Plant Habitat-07, which launched to the International Space Station aboard NASA’s SpaceX 31st commercial resupply services mission.
The experiment focuses on studying how optimal and suboptimal moisture conditions affect plant growth, nutrient content, and the plant microbiome in microgravity. Research like this continues NASA’s efforts to grow food that is not only safe but also nutritious for astronauts living and working in the harsh environment of space.
The ‘Outredgeous’ romaine lettuce variety was first grown aboard the space station in 2014, and Plant Habitat-07 builds on that legacy, using the station’s Advanced Plant Habitat to expand understanding of how plants adapt to spaceflight conditions. Findings from this work will support future long-duration missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond, and could also lead to agricultural advances here on Earth.
Image credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett
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By NASA
5 Min Read Planetary Alignment Provides NASA Rare Opportunity to Study Uranus
Artist's illustration showing a distant star going out of sight as it is eclipsed by Uranus – an event known as a planetary stellar occultation. Credits: NASA/Advanced Concepts Laboratory When a planet’s orbit brings it between Earth and a distant star, it’s more than just a cosmic game of hide and seek. It’s an opportunity for NASA to improve its understanding of that planet’s atmosphere and rings. Planetary scientists call it a stellar occultation and that’s exactly what happened with Uranus on April 7.
Observing the alignment allows NASA scientists to measure the temperatures and composition of Uranus’ stratosphere – the middle layer of a planet’s atmosphere – and determine how it has changed over the last 30 years since Uranus’ last significant occultation.
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This rendering demonstrates what is happening during a stellar occultation and illustrates an example of the light curve data graph recorded by scientists that enables them to gather atmospheric measurements, like temperature and pressure, from Uranus as the amount of starlight changes when the planet eclipses the star.NASA/Advanced Concepts Laboratory “Uranus passed in front of a star that is about 400 light years from Earth,” said William Saunders, planetary scientist at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, and science principal investigator and analysis lead, for what NASA’s team calls the Uranus Stellar Occultation Campaign 2025. “As Uranus began to occult the star, the planet’s atmosphere refracted the starlight, causing the star to appear to gradually dim before being blocked completely. The reverse happened at the end of the occultation, making what we call a light curve. By observing the occultation from many large telescopes, we are able to measure the light curve and determine Uranus’ atmospheric properties at many altitude layers.”
We are able to measure the light curve and determine Uranus' atmospheric properties at many altitude layers.
William Saunders
Planetary Scientist at NASA's Langley Research Center
This data mainly consists of temperature, density, and pressure of the stratosphere. Analyzing the data will help researchers understand how the middle atmosphere of Uranus works and could help enable future Uranus exploration efforts.
To observe the rare event, which lasted about an hour and was only visible from Western North America, planetary scientists at NASA Langley led an international team of over 30 astronomers using 18 professional observatories.
Kunio Sayanagi, NASA’s principal investigator for the Uranus Stellar Occultation Campaign 2025, meeting virtually with partners and observing data from the Flight Mission Support Center at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia during Uranus’ stellar occultation event on April 7, 2025.NASA/Dave MacDonnell “This was the first time we have collaborated on this scale for an occultation,” said Saunders. “I am extremely grateful to each member of the team and each observatory for taking part in this extraordinary event. NASA will use the observations of Uranus to determine how energy moves around the atmosphere and what causes the upper layers to be inexplicably hot. Others will use the data to measure Uranus’ rings, its atmospheric turbulence, and its precise orbit around the Sun.”
Knowing the location and orbit of Uranus is not as simple as it sounds. In 1986, NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft became the first and only spacecraft to fly past the planet – 10 years before the last bright stellar occultation occured in 1996. And, Uranus’ exact position in space is only accurate to within about 100 miles, which makes analyzing this new atmospheric data crucial to future NASA exploration of the ice giant.
These investigations were possible because the large number of partners provided many unique views of the stellar occultation from many different instruments.
NASA planetary scientist William Saunders and Texas A&M University research assistant Erika Cook in the control room of the McDonald Observatory’s Otto Struve Telescope in Jeff Davis County, Texas, during the Uranus stellar occultation on April 7, 2025.Joshua Santana Emma Dahl, a postdoctoral scholar at Caltech in Pasadena, California, assisted in gathering observations from NASA’s Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF) on the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii – an observatory first built to support NASA’s Voyager missions.
“As scientists, we do our best work when we collaborate. This was a team effort between NASA scientists, academic researchers, and amateur astronomers,” said Dahl. “The atmospheres of the gas and ice giant planets [Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune] are exceptional atmospheric laboratories because they don’t have solid surfaces. This allows us to study cloud formation, storms, and wind patterns without the extra variables and effects a surface produces, which can complicate simulations very quickly.”
On November 12, 2024, NASA Langley researchers and collaborators were able to do a test run to prepare for the April occultation. Langley coordinated two telescopes in Japan and one in Thailand to observe a dimmer Uranus stellar occultation only visible from Asia. As a result, these observers learned how to calibrate their instruments to observe stellar occultations, and NASA was able to test its theory that multiple observatories working together could capture Uranus’ big event in April.
Researchers from the Paris Observatory and Space Science Institute, in contact with NASA, also coordinated observations of the November 2024 occultation from two telescopes in India. These observations of Uranus and its rings allowed the researchers, who were also members of the April 7 occultation team, to improve the predictions about the timing on April 7 down to the second and also improved modeling to update Uranus’ expected location during the occultation by 125 miles.
This image of Uranus from NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope exquisitely captures Uranus’s seasonal north polar cap and dim inner and outer rings. This Webb image also shows 9 of the planet’s 27 moons – clockwise starting at 2 o’clock, they are: Rosalind, Puck, Belinda, Desdemona, Cressida, Bianca, Portia, Juliet, and Perdita.NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI Uranus is almost 2 billion miles away from Earth and has an atmosphere composed of primarily hydrogen and helium. It does not have a solid surface, but rather a soft surface made of water, ammonia, and methane. It’s called an ice giant because its interior contains an abundance of these swirling fluids that have relatively low freezing points. And, while Saturn is the most well-known planet for having rings, Uranus has 13 known rings composed of ice and dust.
Over the next six years, Uranus will occult several dimmer stars. NASA hopes to gather airborne and possibly space-based measurements of the next bright Uranus occultation in 2031, which will be of an even brighter star than the one observed in April.
For more information on NASA’s Uranus Stellar Occultation Campaign 2025:
https://science.larc.nasa.gov/URANUS2025
Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov
Charles Hatfield
Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia
757-262-8289
charles.g.hatfield@nasa.gov
About the Author
Charles G. Hatfield
Science Public Affairs Officer, NASA Langley Research Center
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Last Updated Apr 22, 2025 Related Terms
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By NASA
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the company’s Dragon spacecraft is launched on NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 mission to the International Space Station.NASA/Aubrey Gemignani Digital content creators are invited to register to attend the launch of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-11 mission to carry astronauts to the International Space Station for a science expedition as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. This will be the 15th time a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft launched by a Falcon 9 rocket takes crews to the orbital laboratory.
Launch of the Crew-11 mission is targeted for no earlier than July 2025 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Florida. The launch will carry NASA astronauts Commander Zena Cardman and Pilot Mike Fincke, and mission specialists JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Kimiya Yui and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov.
If your passion is to communicate and engage the world online, then this is the event for you! Seize the opportunity to see and share the #Crew11 mission launch.
A maximum of 50 social media users will be selected to attend this two-day event and will be given exclusive access to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
NASA Social participants will have the opportunity to:
View a crewed launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft Tour NASA facilities at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida Meet and interact with Crew-11 subject-matter experts Meet fellow space enthusiasts who are active on social media NASA Social registration for the Crew-11 launch opens on Tuesday, April 15, and the deadline to apply is at 10 a.m. EDT on Monday, April 28. All social applications will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
APPLY NOW
Do I need to have a social media account to register?
Yes. This event is designed for people who:
Actively use multiple social networking platforms and tools to disseminate information to a unique audience. Regularly produce new content that features multimedia elements. Have the potential to reach a large number of people using digital platforms, or reach a unique audience, separate and distinctive from traditional news media and/or NASA audiences. Must have an established history of posting content on social media platforms. Have previous postings that are highly visible, respected and widely recognized. Users on all social networks are encouraged to use the hashtag #NASASocial and #Crew11. Updates and information about the event will be shared on X via @NASASocial and @NASAKennedy, and via posts to Facebook and Instagram.
How do I register?
Registration for this event opens on Tuesday, April 15, and the deadline to apply is at 10 a.m. EDT on Monday, April 28. Registration is for one person only (you) and is non-transferable. Each individual wishing to attend must register separately. Each application will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
Can I register if I am not a U.S. citizen?
Yes, this event is open for all to apply, ages 18 years and older.
When will I know if I am selected?
After registrations have been received and processed, an email with confirmation information and additional instructions will be sent to those selected. We expect to send the acceptance notifications by May 30.
What are NASA Social credentials?
All social applications will be considered on a case-by-case basis. Those chosen must prove through the registration process they meet specific engagement criteria.
If you do not make the registration list for this NASA Social, you still can attend the launch offsite and participate in the conversation online. Find out about ways to experience a launch here.
What are the registration requirements?
Registration indicates your intent to travel to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida and attend the two-day event in person. You are responsible for your own expenses for travel, accommodations, food, and other amenities. You must be able to attend all days of NASA Social activities in order to view the launch
Some events and participants scheduled to appear at the event are subject to change without notice. NASA is not responsible for loss or damage incurred as a result of attending. NASA, moreover, is not responsible for loss or damage incurred if the event is cancelled with limited or no notice. Please plan accordingly.
NASA Kennedy is a government facility. Those who are selected will need to complete an additional registration step to receive clearance to enter the secure areas.
IMPORTANT: To be admitted, you will need to provide two forms of unexpired government-issued identification; one must be a photo ID and match the name provided on the registration. Those without proper identification cannot be admitted.
For a complete list of acceptable forms of ID, please visit: NASA Credentialing Identification Requirements.
All registrants must be at least 18 years old.
What if the launch date changes?
Many different factors can cause a scheduled launch date to change multiple times. If the launch date changes, NASA may adjust the date of the NASA Social accordingly to coincide with the new target launch date. NASA will notify registrants of any changes by email.
If the launch is postponed, attendees may be invited to attend a later launch date but that is not guaranteed.
NASA Social attendees are responsible for any additional costs they incur related to any launch delay. We strongly encourage participants to make travel arrangements that are refundable and/or flexible.
What if I cannot come to the Kennedy Space Center?
If you cannot come to the Kennedy Space Center and attend all days in person, you should not register for the NASA Social. You can follow the conversation online using #NASASocial.
You can also become a virtual guest for NASA launches and milestone events. This free program gives access to curated resources, schedule changes, and mission specific information delivered straight to your inbox. Join us today!
You can watch the launch on NASA+. NASA will provide regular launch and mission updates on X at @NASA, @NASAKennedy, and @Commercial_Crew, as well as on NASA’s Commercial Crew Program blog.
If you cannot make this NASA Social, don’t worry; NASA is planning many other Socials in the near future at various locations!
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