The next Mars rover is set to land next month, and it's equipped with microphones to make the first audio recordings on another planet. So how does sound work on Mars, which has about 1 percent of the atmosphere Earth does? Plus: Saturn's ringed moon Rhea is getting a chemical coating that likely started on another moon.
Honestly, if a Martian showed up on Earth to give out toys, would that be the weirdest thing that's happened in 2020?
We’ve known for some time that at least a few exoplanets could support liquid water, making them potentially habitable. But a paper from Washington State University suggests some of those planets may be super-habitable - as in, they may be more appropriate for life than Earth is! Plus: a new map fills Mars with water, so we can see what the Red Planet would look like if it wasn't red.
Like people in other industries who have the means to do so, the scientists who operate the Curiosity Rover are working away from their office at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in southern California. Though technically when you run a craft that's on another planet, you're always working remotely. Plus: artist Greg Olijnyk makes intricate sculptures of robots, telescopes, ships and more out of plain old cardboard.
NASA has fixed a problem with its Mars lander, essentially by telling the lander to use a robotic arm to help itself - or, depending on the headlines you read, to whack itself. Plus: a Wisconsin man finds a clever way to share a beer with his neighbor in the era of social distancing.
The Curiosity Rover takes selfies on Mars - so how does it do it without having its robot arm in the foreground of every shot?
You know your movie is in trouble when you notice a major mistake in the opening sequence. "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" has two.
