"Mutinous" is not a word frequently used to describe teams of NASA scientists and engineers. But that's precisely the term employed by Harvard University sleep scientist Charles Czeisler to explain what happened when the group operating the Pathfinder mission's rover in 1997 was required to live indefinitely on Mars time. "They didn't really have a plan for dealing with the Martian day before they went up, and the rover lasted a lot longer than it was supposed to, so they actually had a mutiny and wanted to shut the thing off because they were so exhausted," he says, drily adding the obvious: "NASA wasn't too happy with that notion."

It accounts for no more than 39 minutes and 35 seconds but the difference between the terrestrial “day” and the Martian “sol” can really mess up human circadian rhythms. It is like skipping one time zone every day, leading to a permanent need to adjust to a feeling of mild jet lag. As everyone who ever experienced jet lag knows, deviating from the internal clock usually leads to sleepiness and impairs the ability to concentrate and think clearly. As NASA’s Curiosity rover continues its journey over the Red Planet’s surface, this adjustment to space jet lag is exactly what the operations team in NASA’s JPL are going through. The mission requires them to steer the rover in the real Martian time making it impossible to follow a 24 hour schedule. The results of a study conducted on the engineers operating the previous Martian lander Phoenix could help with this challenge.

A new analysis of Martian soil data led by University of California, Berkeley, geoscientists suggests that there was once enough water in the planet's atmosphere for a light drizzle or dew to hit the ground, leaving tell-tale signs of its interaction with the planet's surface. The study's conclusion breaks from the more dominant view that the liquid water that once existed during the red planet's infancy came mainly in the form of upwelling groundwater rather than rain. To come up with their conclusions, the UC Berkeley-led researchers used published measurements of soil from Mars that were taken by various NASA missions: Viking 1, Viking 2, Pathfinder, Spirit and Opportunity. These five missions provided information on soil from widely distant sites surveyed between 1976 and 2006.

After the rovers 'Spirit' and 'Opportunity' landed on Mars in January 2004, international excitement was so great that NASA received over 6.5 billion hits on its website in less than two months. Helping the wildly popular Mars program get off the ground, so to speak, were some calculations of an Israeli scientist, Prof. Joseph Appelbaum of Tel Aviv University, along with colleagues at NASA.

The Mars Pathfinder Sojourner Rover, a lightweight machine on wheels, accomplished a revolutionary feat on the surface of Mars. For the first time, a thinking robot equipped with sophisticated laser eyes and automated programming reacted to unplanned events on the surface of another planet.

R. Aileen Yingst, adjunct assistant professor of Natural and Applied Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, has won a $153,950 grant from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to conduct a study that may provide clues about the origin and history of the planet Mars, and also offer revelations about earth. Yingst will study rocks observed during the 1997 Mars Pathfinder mission when instruments landed on the surface of Mars transmitted information about the planet to scientists on earth. Results of the study may help to answer important questions.

Five years ago, on September 27, 1997, NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory began to lose communication and battery power to the Mars Pathfinder mission, ending its highly successful exploration.

Five years ago today, on September 27, 1997, NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory began to lose communication and battery power to the Mars Pathfinder mission, ending its highly successful exploration. The Pathfinder lander, formally named the Carl Sagan Memorial Station following its successful touchdown, landed on July 4, 1997 with its Rover, called Sojourner.

Five years ago today, on September 27, 1997, NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory began to lose communication with the Mars Pathfinder and ended its highly successful mission. The interview with Matt Golombek, Project Scientist, highlights Mars' warm and wet past. The still remarkable landing sequence, with first signal only 3 minutes after touchdown, seemed a rare combination of luck (bounced 16 times and landed on its base petal). Not mentioned, it cost less than the making of even a medium-sized Hollywood movie.

This Independence Day marks the fifth anniversary since NASA's Mars Pathfinder, carrying its rover Sojourner, landed on the Red Planet. The probe sent back some of the most memorable pictures ever taken of another planet, including this panoramic view of the Pathfinder landing site.

Five years ago on Friday, July 4, 1997, American flags dressed the nation in a giant Independence Day celebration. It was National Hot Dog Month, and an estimated 155 million hot dogs hit the grill that weekend alone. Space must have been on moviegoers minds, as the alien flick "Men in Black" took in a whopping $84 million during its holiday opening. How appropriate then that 192 million kilometers (119 million miles) away from Earth, there was even more to celebrate: NASA's Mars Pathfinder mission had completed its seven-month journey by bouncing to a landing on Mars and opening up a whole new world of Mars exploration. The landing was a tremendous event at JPL, where mission controllers cheered, clapped and even shed tears over their success.

Scientists have found "intriguing" new evidence that may indicate there is life on Mars. An analysis of data obtained by the Pathfinder mission to the Red Planet in 1997 suggests there could be chlorophyll - the molecule used by plants and other organisms on Earth to extract energy from sunlight - in the soil close to the landing site.

In Fran Hartman's fourth-grade class at Cedar Wood Elementary School, lessons from Mars are more than a string of facts gleaned from the Internet. They include a land rover driven over the femur and fibula to simulate the red planet's rocky terrain. What better way to learn about exploration on Mars than having as a guest lecturer the first person to ever drive on another planet.

By combining three image mosaics, scientists have generated a donut-shaped picture with an overhead view of NASA's highly successfull and hugely popular Mars Pathfinder lander and Sojourner rover on the surface of the Red Planet.

Can a spacecraft that touched down on Mars in 1997 help find the lost Polar Lander? Hoping the answer is yes, NASA has aimed a camera orbiting the red planet on the landing site of the Mars Pathfinder. Besides providing the highest resolution images ever of the spot -- the space agency released those images this week -- the photo shoot could help scientists focus the lens on the area where the Mars Polar Lander disappeared.