Space and astronomy news
At this point in its mission, NASA’s Mars Perseverance Rover has collected almost 50% of its samples. The rover is now building its first sample ‘depot’ on the surface of Mars. The depot is a flat, obstacle-free area with 11 separate landing circles, one for each sample tube and one for the lander.
A future mission will retrieve these samples by helicopter.
Continue reading “Perseverance is Putting its Samples Onto the Surface of Mars, So a Future Helicopter can Pick Them Up”
In a recent study published in Nature Communications, an international team of researchers led by Stanford University used artificial intelligence (AI) to examine the formation of sand ripples and sand dunes of two distinct sizes on Mars. These formations might help scientists better understand Mars’ atmospheric history through examining the fossilized forms of these aeolian (windblown) structures using statistical analyses.
Continue reading “Mars Has Bizarre Dunes Thanks to its Low Atmospheric Pressure and Strange Winds”
It’s winter here on Earth, for those living in the northern hemisphere. This means snow, rain, colder temperatures, and all the other things we associate with “the festive season.” Much the same is true for Mars (aka. “Earth’s Twin”), which is also experiencing winter in its northern hemisphere right now. This means colder temperatures, especially around the polar regions where it can get as low as -123 °C (-190 °F), as well as ice, snow, frost, and the expansion of the polar ice caps – which are composed of both water ice and frozen carbon dioxide (“dry ice”).
While Mars does not experience snowfall the same way Earth does, seasonal change results in some very interesting phenomena. Thanks to the many robotic explorers NASA and other space agencies have sent to Mars in the past fifty years, scientists have been able to get a close-up look at these phenomena. These include the Viking orbiters and landers that studied the planet in the 1970s (with groundbreaking results) to the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), the Mars Exploration Rovers (Spirit and Opportunity), and the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers exploring the surface today.
Continue reading “Seen From Space: Sand Dunes on Mars Covered by Frost”
Earth’s oxygen-rich atmosphere does more than provide the foundation for complex life. The oxygen in the atmosphere is so reactive that it readily combines with other chemical elements. Together, they form important ores like iron oxides and manganese oxides found in the Earth’s crust. So, when rovers spotted manganese oxides on Mars, scientists interpreted them as clues to Mars’ earlier atmosphere: it must have contained oxygen.
But a new study puts the brakes on that idea.
Continue reading “Minerals Could Form on Mars Without an Oxygen-Rich Atmosphere”
Mars might not be the first place you would think of when thinking about where wind power might be useful. It has dust storms similar in scale to anything that the Earth can muster, and they’ve been responsible for the death of lots of the technology we’ve sent to the Red planet over the years. However, the strength of those storms is only enough to lift some dust particles into the air, which eventually shrouds that technology’s solar panels. Scientists have thought that it doesn’t really have enough oomph to be useful for anything. However, a new paper calls that assumption into question and shows that wind power could be useful on Mars.
Continue reading “Despite the low air Pressure, Wind Turbines Might Actually Work on Mars”
The InSight lander might have transmitted its last picture from the surface of Mars. It looks like the lander is succumbing to Mars’ dusty conditions, as its ability to generate energy from its solar panels has been declining in recent weeks.
It’s always sad and somehow poignant when a lander or a rover falls silent. Each of them has a personality that goes along with their mission. But we’ve known for months this day was coming.
Continue reading “This Will Probably Be InSight’s Last Picture Before it Runs Out of Power Forever”
Want to go to Mars? Great! Now, all you need to do is plan a mission. Figure out where to land, what to bring, and how you’re going to live there in the months (or years) between favorable return windows. All this will be determined by the availability of crucial resources you’ll need to survive.
Continue reading “Where are the Best Places to Land Humans on Mars?”
For years, we’ve seen images from various Mars rovers and landers of dust devils churning across the dusty landscape of the Red Planet. But now, thanks to a microphone on the Perseverance rover and a whirling dust storm that passed directly over the rover, we know what a dust devil on Mars sounds like, too.
Continue reading “Perseverance Heard a Dust Devil on Mars, and Now You Can Too”
Last week gave us a celestial triple header, all in one night. The Moon was full and Mars was at opposition (at its closest point to Earth). But the pièce de résistance was when the Moon occulted or passed in front of Mars on the evening/morning of December 7th/8th. Our astrophotographer friends were out in full force to capture the event.
Our lead image comes from prolific amateur astronomer and photographer Alan Dyer, who observed the occultation from his home in Alberta, Canada, and created this composite view of the night’s activities. “While this composite makes it look like Mars was doing the moving,” Dyer explained on Flickr, “it was really the Moon that was passing in front of Mars. But for this sequence I set the telescope mount to track the Moon at its rate of motion against the background stars and Mars, to keep the Moon more or less stationary on the frame while Mars and the background sky passed behind it.”
Here are some more great views from around the world:
Continue reading “In Case you Missed it, Here are Some Amazing Pictures of Mars Hiding Behind the Moon”
Billions of years ago, Mars was a much different place than it is today. Its atmosphere was thicker and warmer, liquid water flowed on its surface, and the planet was geologically active. Due to its lower gravity, this activity led to the largest volcanoes in the Solar System (Olympus Mons and the Thetis Mons region) and the longest, deepest canyon in the world (Valles Marineris). Unfortunately, Mars’ interior began to cool rapidly, its inner core solidified, and geological activity largely stopped. For some time, geologists have believed that Mars was essentially “dead” in the geological sense.
However, recent studies have provided seismic and geophysical evidence that Mars may still be “slightly alive.” In a recent study, scientists from the University of Arizona (ASU) challenged conventional views of Martian geodynamic evolution by discovering evidence of an active mantle plume pushing its way through the crust, causing earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Combined with some serious marsquakes recorded by NASA’s InSight lander, these finding suggests that there is still some powerful volcanic action beneath the surface of Mars.
Continue reading “There's a Giant Magma Plume on Mars, Bulging the Surface out Across a Vast Region”