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In fact, "the Martian night is so hot that the

Aug. 17, 2017 by Kenneth Newton

In fact, "the Martian night is so hot that the dust is not even melting. Instead, it has been covered in molten iron" as scientists explained in a report published in the journal Nature in April.

One of the team's last observations on Mars, from 2012, was a massive impact crater, the first such encounter in space. The impact that resulted in the most powerful blast in history took place at the same time as the rover's main lander, the Mars Pathfinder.

"This was the first impact that we had seen," says Bill Wigley, a planetary scientist for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the lead author of the Nature paper.

The impact crater was a crater that may have formed as part of Martian microbial life. So the team's work was "a pretty dramatic turn off for us," says Wigley, who was not involved in the Mars rover team. But this was also an early milestone for the team, with Opportunity studying the planet for more than a year before deciding to launch its Pathfinder mission in June. "We're not a big project—we're just doing a big project," he says.

The Mars Pathfinder is designed to be launched aboard the JPL-Caltech Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2019. Wigley says the mission will focus on mapping the Mars landscape and will be more than just science: "We want to see the lander's landscape and its landscape."

Wigley says Opportunity is scheduled to launch its Pathfinder mission in late April.WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate on Thursday approved a bill that would expand the powers of state and local agencies to compel Americans who have been arrested as they try to buy guns to pay back their debt, the latest sign of an effort to end the federal government's grip on the firearms market, with bipartisan support in the Senate and House of Representatives.

U.S. Senators Chuck Grassley and Mark Udall (D-Colo.), left, and U.S. Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) speak during the Capitol in Washington, U.S., October 27, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

The bill, which became law on Wednesday, would make it illegal to sell firearms to people convicted of misdemeanors or felonies such as domestic violence, domestic assault and domestic violence.

"The law is just a stepping stone. We are going to continue to fight to end the gun control gun registry in this country