NASA’s Mars 2020 Rover was given a vision test as preparation for the Martian fact-finding mission gathered pace ahead of next year’s launch.  

Scientists carried out the Rover’s vision calibration using target boards featuring grids of dots, placed from one to 40m away, testing the resolution and geometric accuracy of the remote robotic vehicle’s “armada of imaging capabilities”, reported NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab.   

Biomarker for sleep loss 

In other news, NASA scientists revealed a new eye test that can provide a reliable biomarker for acute sleep loss.  

Researchers discovered a set of easily obtainable eye movement measures can gauge small neural defects and pinpoint the cause of impairment.  

“By looking at a wide variety of components of human eye movements, we could not only detect sleepiness but also distinguish it from other factors, such as alcohol use or brain injury, that we have previously shown cause subtly different deficits in eye movements," said Dr Lee Stone from NASA’s Visuomotor Control Laboratory.