Nasa to send new rover to Mars in 2020
The vehicle will be based on its Curiosity robot, which landed on the Red Planet in August.
Nasa expects to re-use many of the technologies that worked
so successfully in getting the one-tonne spacecraft down into the huge
equatorial bowl known as Gale Crater.
This included a rocket-powered crane that lowered Curiosity to the surface on nylon cords.
The announcement of a follow-up robot was made here at the
American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting, the world's largest
annual gathering for Earth and planetary scientists, and a major
showcase for Nasa-led research.
- (A) Curiosity will trundle around its landing site looking for interesting rock features to study. Its top speed is about 4cm/s
- (B) This mission has 17 cameras. They will identify particular targets, and a laser will zap those rocks to probe their chemistry
- (C) If the signal is significant, Curiosity will swing over instruments on its arm for close-up investigation. These include a microscope
- (D) Samples drilled from rock, or scooped from the soil, can be delivered to two hi-tech analysis labs inside the rover body
- (E) The results are sent to Earth through antennas on the rover deck. Return commands tell the rover where it should drive next
Scientists find what may have been the first dinosaur - and say it was similar in size to a Labrador with a tail 5 feet long
The first dinosaur to have walked on Earth may have been found by scientists.
Nyasasaurus parringtoni would have been alive 10 to 15 million years before any previously known dinosaurs - and more than 150million years before the mighty Tyrannosaurus Rex.
The size of a Labrador and slight of build, Nyasasaurus had a five foot-long tail and likely walked upright on two legs.
The fossilised bones were collected
during a Cambridge University expedition to Tanzania in the 1930s and
gradually examined over the decades by Natural History Museum
palaeontologist Alan Charig.
He requested that the work be continued on his death and the full details have now been published.
Dr
Paul Barrett, a NHM dinosaur expert who took part in the study, said:
'We don't know if it walked on two legs or four legs but our prediction
is that it's two legs and the reason is that the majority of early
dinosaurs are two-legged animals.
