This can severely hamper communications with the probes we have floating around on Mars. It’s not a huge deal for the data that they’re sending back to us if there are “pieces” of data broken off, since we can simply get those probes to re-transmit the data. However, this become a much bigger problem for commands being sent from Earth to NASA’s Mars spacecraft. If the probes receive only partial instructions, things can go pretty haywire. And that would be bad.

The phenomenon is called solar conjunction and it basically means that the Earth and Mars will be precisely on opposite sides of the sun. This happens about every 26 months. To further exacerbate the issue, the sun will also be at the peak of its active phase around the same time. So, NASA figured it was best to just take that time off. The probes can keep doing their thing with some pre-scheduled tasks, but they’re not going to be quite as active with the whole transmission thing for those three weeks.

Odyssey, Curiosity, and the rest of the NASA gear over on Mars will be sending back daily beeps to Earth to let us know that they’re still doing okay.

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This is a pretty big deal. This is the first time that something man-made, as far as we know, has drilled into the bedrock on Mars to obtain a sample. Up until now, we’ve only literally brushed the surface or perhaps used some abrasion tools to get a little deeper. The hole is only about 2.5 inches deep and 0.63 inches wide, but this will give scientists access to the fine-grained sedimentary bedrock. This sample could reveal all sorts of secrets about the Martian past, including when it once had a wet surface.

We can’t expect to get some crazy results instantaneously, of course. Over the next few days, the Curiosity rover will need to blast off the internal surfaces of the drill bit with some Martian dust, ensuring that it’s not contaminating the sample with anything it brought along with it from Earth. After that, Curiosity and its instruments will example the sample and send those test results back to scientists here on Earth. After being put through a sieve, the super fine dust will then go through the Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) and Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instruments for analysis.

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NXT builders Doug Moran and Will Gorman have put together a working rover that can roam plastic terrain just like Nasa’s own rovers- except one thing, this one is made of Legos. That’s right, this unique rover has four wheels powered out of the six, can make 360 degree turns and even features a working arm and mast, like you’d expect from the real deal. While perhaps not as complex (or space worthy) as NASA’s own “Curiosity“, whic recently touched down on Mars, its still a pretty cool looking contraption, to say the least.

It’s amazing what you can accomplish with a bunch of spare time and thousands of dollars in Legos, isn’t it? Check out the video below and let us know what you think of this LEGO reconstruction of the Curiosity rover.

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