NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has completed the first drives on another world that were planned by artificial intelligence. The demonstration hints at a future of more efficient exploration and even more science. “The fundamental elements of generative AI are showing a lot of promise in streamlining the pillars of autonomous navigation for off-planet driving: perception (seeing the rocks and ripples), localization (knowing where we are), and planning and control (deciding and executing the safe

A martian butterfly flaps its wings 🦋 Insects aren’t commonplace on Mars, so it’s no surprise that this is no butterfly as we know it. It’s actually a kind of crater, formed as a space rock hurtled towards the Red Planet and collided with its red-brown surface. The collision caused two distinct lobes of material to be flung outwards to the crater’s north and south, creating two outstretched ‘wings’ of raised ground. The wings of this particular butterfly crater are rather undefined and irregula