Opportunity of a lifetime: NASA's 4,000 days roving Mars

First paragraph: NASA’s exploration rover Opportunity landed on Mars more than 11 years ago, in January 2004, with what then seemed like ambitious goals: to survive 90 Martian days and drive 600 metres. Opportunity has since driven the first off-Earth marathon (42.2 kilometres, or just over 26 miles) and just passed through its 4,000th Martian day – known as a sol on the Red Planet, lasting 40 minutes longer than on Earth.https://theconversation.com/opportunity-of-a-lifetime-nasas-4-000-days-roving-mars-4106

Life on Mars: my 15 amazing years with Oppy, NASA's record-breaking rover

First paragraph: “It’s getting dark, my batteries are running low.” With this final poignant message, the most successful mission to Mars – originally planned to last 90 days – ended after 15 years, in a dust storm in June 2018. Despite efforts to re-establish contact with its solar-powered rover “Oppy”, NASA declared the mission over on February 13 2019. The little robotic geologist had transmitted thousands of images from the surface of the planet, transforming our understanding of Mars and paving the way for future exploration. In 2003, NASA launched its daring new mission with twin exploration rovers Spirit and Opportunity, heralding a new era of discovery on the Red Planet. While not the first rovers on Mars – that was Sojourner on 1997’s Mars Pathfinder mission – they were the first to look beyond the horizon of any stationary landing platform.https://theconversation.com/life-on-mars-my-15-amazing-years-with-oppy-nasas-record-breaking-rover-11246

Did comets kick-start life on Earth? Chemists find missing piece of puzzle

First paragraph: The origin of life on Earth has been a matter of intense debate throughout human history. Even today, scientists don’t know whether the molecular building blocks of life were created on Earth or whether they were brought here by comets and meteorites. This is obviously hugely important – if they were delivered to Earth then it seems plausible that they may have been transported to other planets, too.https://theconversation.com/did-comets-kick-start-life-on-earth-chemists-find-missing-piece-of-puzzle-5736

Explainer: what is interplanetary dust and can it spread the ingredients of life?

First paragraph: NASA recently reported that a cloud of dust was surrounding Mars high above its atmosphere. The authors of the study ruled out Mars itself and its moons Phobos and Deimos as the sources of the dust and concluded that it must come from a larger dust cloud floating around between the planets in our solar system.https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-interplanetary-dust-and-can-it-spread-the-ingredients-of-life-5047

How the moon formed - new research

First paragraph: How the Earth got its moon is a long debated question. The giant impact theory – which states that the Moon formed from the a collision between the early Earth and a rocky body called Theia – has become the front runner among the explanations. But the details around how this happened are blurry and there are many observations that scientists are still struggling to explain.https://theconversation.com/how-the-moon-formed-new-research-13320

Flying on Saturn’s moon Titan: what we could discover with NASA’s new Dragonfly mission

First paragraph: Flying on other worlds is the next leap in the exploration of our solar system. The Mars Helicopter will piggyback on the NASA Mars 2020 rover mission to demonstrate the technology. But this is only the start. The real prize will be the Dragonfly mission in 2026, sending a drone to Saturn’s largest moon, Titan – as just announced by NASA.https://theconversation.com/flying-on-saturns-moon-titan-what-we-could-discover-with-nasas-new-dragonfly-mission-11982

Discovery of molecular oxygen in comet tail forces rethink on how the solar system formed

First paragraph: Scientists have for the first time detected molecular oxygen (O2) in a comet’s coma, the cloud of gas surrounding it when it moves close to the sun. The discovery, which challenges our understanding of how the solar system formed, was made by the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft orbiting comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko .https://theconversation.com/discovery-of-molecular-oxygen-in-comet-tail-forces-rethink-on-how-the-solar-system-formed-4986

Coordination after gains and losses: Is prospect theory’s value function predictive for games?

We analyze the effects of prior gain and loss experiences on individuals’ behavior in two coordination games: battle of the sexes and simultaneous market entry. We propose subjectively transformed games that integrate elements of prospect theory, aggregation of prior and subsequent payoffs, and social projection. Mathematical predictions of behavior are derived based on equilibrium selection concepts. Males’ behavior in our experimental studies is largely consistent with our predictions. However, the behavior of many female respondents appears to be rather consistent with interpreting the initial random lottery outcomes used to manipulate prior experiences as a signal for the players’ abilities to compete. This could be related to females’ known uneasiness of competing against counterparts that might be male and thus, a generally higher salience of rivalry in our incentivized experiments. Females also chose to play far more mixed strategies than males indicating some uncertainty about what type of behavior is appropriate.Prospect Game Theory, Prior Outcomes, Coordination, Equilibrium Selection, Economic Experiment, Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Financial Economics, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, Risk and Uncertainty,