rover

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Nathan Fielder asks: What happens if you text your parents that you're a drug dealer?

- Some New York City subway stations just got free Wi-Fi and cell service.

- Crew team finds unexpected floating head in Hudson River.

- Michael Bay is why Transformers toys got so complicated over the years.

- Mars Rover penis graffiti goes viral.… Read more

For the first time since its descent onto the red planet, the Mars rover Curiosity is getting a little alone time.

The rover and NASA scientists are having a communication breakdown, of sorts. But, not to worry, no hurt feelings are involved. The issue is that the sun has got in the way.

Once every 26 months, as the Earth and Mars rotate around the sun, the two planets end up on opposite sides of the star in an event called the Mars solar conjunction. Because of the sun's massive size, any communication sent between the two planets can … Read more

This week our Car Tech team was on-hand at the 2013 New York auto show, busily scouring the floors in order to bring you the best from the event, here in video format.

1. 2014 Kia Soul

The 2014 Kia Soul is the surprise of the 2013 New York auto show and a hit of the "box on wheels" movement, plus it comes stacked with some nifty tech.

Last year, Land Rover took the wraps off its fully re-engineered, weight-reduced Range Rover. At the upcoming New York International Auto Show the company will unveil the Range Rover Sport edition, traditionally a more powerful, lowered version of Land Rover's big truck.

Land Rover promises a drive through New York as the first public appearance for the new vehicle on Tuesday, March 26.

I picture it something like this: Land Rover, wanting to enter Manhattan in style, sends the driver on a route over the Brooklyn Bridge, surrounded by camera cars. However, due to construction on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, … Read more

Mars has established a pretty pervasive image for itself. It's the big Red Planet. It's the Clifford the Dog of space. You don't confuse it with all those other, less glamorous, planets. Still, Mars isn't all that it seems. Scratch the surface and it appears to have more in common with the skin tone of an elephant than the ruddy glow of a tomato.

The Curiosity Rover recently broke new ground by drilling into a rock sample, the first time such an activity has been accomplished on a planet other than Earth. What lay beneath wasn't the familiar rust color of the surface, but a decidedly dull gray.… Read more

The Curiosity rover's powerful impact drill has successfully collected its first subsurface sample, about a tablespoon of powdered rock that will be fed into the spacecraft's on-board laboratory instruments for detailed chemical analysis, project officials said Wednesday.

The drill is the last major system on the rover to be tested since landing in Gale Crater last August and the successful collection of subsurface material marks a major milestone in Curiosity's quest to find signs of past or present habitability.

"Curiosity's first drill hole at the John Klein site is a historic moment for the MSL (… Read more

NASA's Curiosity rover currently roaming the surface of Mars is developing a bit of a reputation for discovering groundbreaking false alarms.

There have been been unverified hints of organic matter; mysterious methane that turned out to be some stowaway molecules from Earth; and strange shiny objects of unknown origin.

Yet none of these have led us to the Martians' secret underground base. So it is with some hesitation that I present the above photo from Curiosity that seems to show an even larger and shinier chunk of something metallic. The image was taken by Curiosity's Mastcam late last … Read more

We already know how to explore planets with relatively low gravity, like Mars. The Curiosity Rover is engineered to hang onto the planet's surface, despite it having just 38 percent of the gravity we enjoy on Earth. What happens if you want to check out a small moon or an asteroid with a fraction of that gravity? You design a robotic hedgehog, of course.

Stanford University researchers and NASA are working together on spiky space balls that could dance across the surfaces of moons and asteroids whose low gravity and rough surfaces would bog down a regular rover. … Read more