NASA's Curiosity rover gets its drill stuck, recordings from the Arctic seafloor and more science stories
Key takeaways
- Beloved nature communicator David Attenborough turned 100 on Friday, and scientists named a newly discovered species of wasp in his honor.
- Read on on to learn more about those and other science stories we found interesting this week.
- NASA's Curiosity rover found itself in a bit of a pickle recently after drilling into some Martian rock that proved unexpectedly clingy.
NASA/JPL-Caltech What a week. Beloved nature communicator David Attenborough turned 100 on Friday, and scientists named a newly discovered species of wasp in his honor. The wasp from Chile, called Attenboroughnculus tau, isn't the first to be named after Attenborough — it joins a list of over 50 organisms bearing his name in some way, which seems about right. Also this week, NASA shared an update about its Curiosity rover, which encountered some issues during a sampling attempt on Mars, and the agency released a new batch of photos from the Artemis II mission.
Read on on to learn more about those and other science stories we found interesting this week.
NASA's Curiosity rover found itself in a bit of a pickle recently after drilling into some Martian rock that proved unexpectedly clingy. In an incident that was captured by Curiosity's cameras on April 29, the rover can be seen with a slab of rock stuck on its drill bit after it attempted to collect a sample. The rock, dubbed Atacama, was about 1.5 feet wide and weighed nearly 30 pounds, according to NASA. Somehow in the 14 years the rover has been exploring Mars, this has never happened before, and vibrating the drill to shake the rock free didn't work at first.