Mars Archives

July 1, 2023July 1, 2023 by Matt Williams

Mmm. Perseverance Finds a Doughnut-Shaped Rock on Mars.

NASA's Perseverance rover spotted a donut-shaped rock on Mars. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The pareidolia crowd is sure to have a field day with this! Once again, an oddly-shaped rock has been spotted on Mars. Once again, the rock is donut-shaped. This particular rock was spotted by NASA’s Perseverance rover, which continues to explore the Jezero Crater in Mars’ northern hemisphere. The image was taken by the Remote Microscopic Imager (RMI), part of the SuperCam instrument, at a distance of about 100 meters (328 feet) from the rover, on June 22nd, 2023 – the 832nd Martian day (or sol) of the mission.

June 30, 2023July 1, 2023 by Laurence Tognetti

Melting Water in Mars’ Past Could Have Created Martian Gullies

Image of gullies in Terra Sirenum on Mars taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera onboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. (Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona)

A recent study published in Science examines how thin channels inside impact craters on Mars could have formed from Martian gullies, which share similar characteristics with gullies on Earth and are typically formed from cascading meltwater, despite the Martian atmosphere being incapable of supporting liquid water on its surface. However, the researchers hypothesize these gullies could have formed during periods of high obliquity, also known as axial tilt, on Mars, which could have resulted in a brief rise in surface temperatures that could have melted some surface and subsurface ice, leading to meltwater cascading down the sides of impact craters across the planet.

June 29, 2023June 30, 2023 by Laurence Tognetti

NASA’s HiRISE Camera Recently Imaged a Martian Dust Devil. But Why Study Them?

A recent dust devil on Mars captured by NASA's High Resolution Imaging Experiment (HiRISE) camera. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UArizona)

NASA recently used its powerful High Resolution Imaging Experiment (HiRISE) camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to take a breathtaking image of a dust devil traversing Syria Planum on Mars. One unique aspect of dust devils is their shadows can be used to estimate their height, which have been estimated to reach 20 km (12 miles) into the Martian sky. Studying dust devils on Mars is a regular occurrence for the scientific community and can help scientists better understand surface processes on other planets. But with the atmospheric pressure on Mars being only a fraction of Earth’s, what processes are responsible for producing dust devils?

June 28, 2023June 28, 2023 by Andy Tomaswick

The Mars Sample Return Mission is Starting to Look Expensive

We say it all the time here at UT – getting to space is hard. It’s even more hard to do new and interesting things in space. And when projects get hard, that usually means they cost more money. That is certainly the case for one of the most anticipated missions on NASA’s current docket – the Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission. And it’s not looking like it’s going to get any easier anytime soon.

June 26, 2023June 26, 2023 by Matt Williams

Mars Lacks a Planet-Wide Magnetosphere, but it Does Have Pockets of Magnetism

Mars has magnetized rocks in its crust that create localized, patchy magnetic fields (left). In the illustration at right, we see how those fields extend into space above the rocks. At their tops, auroras can form. Credit: NASA

The Zhurong rover has operated on the surface of Mars for over a year since it deployed on May 22nd, 2021. Before the rover suspended operations on May 20th, 2022, due to the onset of winter and the approach of seasonal sandstorms, Zhurong managed to traverse a total distance of 1.921 km (1.194 mi). During the first kilometer of this trek, the rover obtained vital data on Mars’ extremely weak magnetic fields. According to a new study by researchers from the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS), these readings indicate that the magnetic field is extremely weak beneath the rover’s landing site.

June 26, 2023June 26, 2023 by Matt Williams

Germany is Building a Tiny Rover That Will Roam the Surface of Phobos

Artist's impression of the IDEFIX rover on Phobos, with the MMX spacecraft in the background. Credit: DLR

At this very moment, eleven robotic missions are operating in orbit or on the surface of Mars, more than at any point during the past sixty years. These include the many orbiters surveying the Red Planet from orbit, the handful of landers and rovers, and one helicopter (Ingenuity) studying the surface. In the coming years, many more are expected, reflecting the growing number of nations participating in the exploration process. Once there, they will join in the ongoing search for clues about the planet’s formation, evolution, and possible evidence that life once existed there.

However, there’s also the mystery concerning the origin of Phobos and Deimos, Mars’ two satellites. While scientists have long suspected that these two moons began as asteroids kicked from the Main Belt that were captured by Mars’ gravity, there is no scientific consensus on this point. This is the purpose of the Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission currently under development by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), which will explore both moons with the help of a Phobos rover provided by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the French National Center of Space Studies (CNES).

June 24, 2023June 24, 2023 by Brian Koberlein

Extending Earth's Internet to Mars With Orbital Data Servers

How an interplanetary internet might work. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

You’ve done it. After years of effort and training, sacrifice, and pain, you become an astronaut and have finally set foot on Mars. Time to post your triumph on TikTok for that sweet social media cred. If only you can get a signal.

June 7, 2023June 7, 2023 by Nancy Atkinson

Missed the Mars Livestream? Here's the Video

An animation created from images that were sent to Earth, beamed directly from the Visual Monitoring Camera (VMC) on board ESA’s long-lived Mars Express mission, during a special livestream of data from Mars to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the mission. Credit: ESA.

When a mission to Mars reaches 20 years of service, that’s definitely reason to celebrate. ESA’s Mars Express celebrated by airing the first-ever livestream of images, sent directly from the Visual Monitoring Camera (VMC) on board the spacecraft. For an hour, it sent back images from the Red Planet in as close to real-time as the speed of light would allow.

The animated gif, above, was created from all the images that came down during that hour, roughly 50 seconds apart from each other. There’s a short break in the middle of the animation because of an unexpected rainstorm at ESA’s ground station in Cebreros, Spain, where telemetry wasn’t able to be received.

June 7, 2023June 7, 2023 by Andy Tomaswick

SLS Could Launch a Sample Return Mission to Phobos and Deimos

The Mars Reconaissance Orbiter (MRO) captured this image of Phobos and the Stickney crater in 2008. The grooves are clearly visible in the image. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

NASA’s next colossal rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), recently had its first successful flight back in November after years of development. Much of that development was done by aerospace contractors like Northrop Grumman and Boeing, so it is a good bet that engineers at those companies want the SLS to be seen as a success. One measure of its success will be how many missions it manages to help launch successfully – the more missions, the better. To help plan out some of those missions, a pair of Boeing engineers wrote a paper describing an outline of a sample return mission to Phobos and Deimos. And, of course, it would be launched by the SLS.

May 31, 2023May 31, 2023 by Nancy Atkinson

NASA's Mars Helicopter Went Silent for Six Agonizing Days

The Ingenuity helicopter photographed by the Perseverance rover. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter on Mars has exceeded everyone’s expectations, recently completing its 51st flight when it was supposed to fly just a few times as a demonstration mission. But flights 50 and 51 almost didn’t happen.

In a recent blog post, Travis Brown, Chief Engineer for Ingenuity shared how the team lost contact with the tiny rotorcraft for six excruciating days.