Technologies

NASA Hopes Mars Rock Sample Might Contain Droplet of Ancient Water

Let’s get this Martian rock back to Earth and take a closer look.

This story is part of Welcome to Mars, our series exploring the red planet.

There’s a growing sense of excitement around NASA’s future Mars Sample Return mission, an effort to bring the Perseverance rover’s rock collection back to Earth. A new rock sample is adding to the anticipation because it might contain evidence of ancient water and (fingers crossed) long-ago microbial life — if it existed there.

The rock in question is now Perseverance’s 15th core sample. It’s named «Kukaklek» after a lake and river in Alaska. On Wednesday, the Perseverance team trumpeted the successful collection of the «nice piece of sandstone.»

Astrobiologist Erin Gibbons of McGill University offered more details on the rock in a rover update this week. Gibbons pointed out a set of thin, white veins visible in the sandstone after the rover abraded the surface away to get a look underneath. The veins are evidence of past water activity that filled small factures with mineral deposits.

NASA had previously talked up the sandstone rock prior to the rover gathering a sample, expressing hope that it might hold biosignatures, which the agency defines as «any characteristic, element, molecule, substance, or feature that can serve as evidence for ancient life.» Gibbons’ update highlights an even more specific dream of perhaps finding water hidden within.

NASA picked the Jezero Crater as the Perseverance rover’s landing site due to its intriguing history of water. It appears to be home to an ancient lake bed and river delta from a time long ago when Mars was wetter.

The rock was part of an outcrop named Hidden Harbor that likely formed back when Jezero was a lake. «This was an exciting find because the veins are strikingly different than the sedimentary rock surrounding them, suggesting that they formed at a different time and under different conditions,» said Gibbons. It’s like cracking open a tiny window into the Martian past.

The veins could hold hidden clues to Mars’ history of microbial life, if it was ever in residence there. «It is even possible that, during crystallization, the minerals in the veins trapped a droplet or two of the ancient water that carried them through the network of fractures in the first place, providing a time capsule of Mars’ watery past,» said Gibbons.

Miniscule fluid inclusions have been found in ancient Earth rocks. A study earlier this year described the discovery of microorganisms 830 million years old in fluid inclusions in halite crystals, raising the possibility that a similar find from Mars could preserve organic matter. «Do the veins in Jezero contain such fluid inclusions? It’s possible, but we cannot know for certain until we bring a sample back to Earth for detailed analysis,» Gibbons wrote.

The Mars Sample Return mission will be complicated and challenging, but necessary to truly understand Mars’ past and, hopefully, answer the question of whether the red planet was once home to microbial life.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for June 9, #463

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle No. 463 for June 9.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Todays NYT Strands puzzle features a bunch of mysterious words. Some are a bit difficult to unscramble so if you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: What you see isn’t what you get

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Hiding in plain sight

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

CALL, CALLS, FALL, FALLS, SAME, SEAM, LAND, ROSE, COVE, CANE, CANES, FLUME, FLUMES, DIGS, MEAL, COLA, CARD, CASE

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

MASK, CLOAK, COVER, FACADE, DISGUISE, CAMOUFLAGE

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is FALSEFRONT. To find it, start with the F that’s two rows over from the far left and two letters down. Wind around into a question mark.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for June 9, #729

Here are some hints and the answers for Connections for June 9, No. 729.

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Do you play the NYT Spelling Bee? If you do, you should be able to ace the purple category in today’s NYT Connections puzzle. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times now has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.

Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time

Hints for today’s Connections groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group, to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Control-C.

Green group hint: Don’t wait till the last minute.

Blue group hint: Pals to plan a heist.

Purple group hint: Think another NYT online game.

Answers for today’s Connections groups

Yellow group: Keyboard shortcut commands.

Green group: Secure in advance.

Blue group: Crime organization.

Purple group: Spellling Bee ranks minus a letter.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is keyboard shortcut commands. The four answers are paste, print, quit and save.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is secure in advance. The four answers are book, order, request and reserve.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is crime organization. The four answers are crew, family, ring and syndicate.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is Spelling Bee ranks minus a letter. The four answers are genus, goo, mazing and slid. (Genius, good, amazing and solid.)

Technologies

I Made Google Translate My Default on iPhone Before a Trip and It Saved Me More Than Once

Google Translate supports far more languages than Apple’s app, and it’s easy to make the switch.

If you’re traveling overseas this summer, the Google Translate app can come in handy to quickly translate a road sign or conversation. The latest Google Translate update allows you to pick the app as your default translation app for Apple iPhones and iPads running iOS and iPadOS 18.4 and later. Previously, you were limited to the built-in Apple option.

Google began leveraging AI to boost Google Translate’s offerings, adding 110 languages last year to increase its total support for 249 languages. Compare that to Apple Translate, which supports 19 languages. Neither Google nor Apple responded to a request for comment.

Both apps offer voice and text translation, including a camera feature that lets you instantly translate by pointing your camera at text. Both also allow you to use translation features without an internet connection, which can come in particularly handy when traveling to more remote locations.

After using both, I found that the Google Translate picked up speech a little quicker so I didn’t have to constantly repeat myself, and the audio pronunciations were a little easier to understand than on Apple Translate. I switched to Google Translate as the default on my iPhone, and here’s how you can, too.