Scientists Piece Together the Shoreline of an Ancient Ocean on Mars

Stitched together from 28 images, this view from NASA's Curiosity Mars rover was captured after the rover ascended the steep slope of a geologic feature called "Greenheugh Pediment." In the distance at the top of the image is the floor of Gale Crater, which is near a region called Aeolis Dorsa that researchers believe was once a massive ocean. The layered structure of the rocks indicated they were created by waterborne sediment. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS.

Scientists have long suspected that Mars was once warm and wet in its ancient past. The Mars Ocean Hypothesis says that the planet was home to a large ocean around 4 billion years ago. The ocean filled the Vastitas Borealis basin in the planet’s northern hemisphere. The basin is 4–5 km (2.5–3 miles) below Mars’ mean elevation.

A new topographic map of Mars reinforces the hypothesis and adds more detail.

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When Should Robots Take Risks Exploring Other Worlds?

The path followed by Perseverance in the Jezero Crater since landing in February 2021. Credit: NASA

On May 1st, 2009, after five years on the Martian surface, the Spirit rover got stuck in a patch of soft sand (where it would remain for the rest of its mission). On February 13th, 2019, NASA officials declared that Spirit’s sister – the Opportunity rover – had concluded its mission after a planetary dust storm forced it into hibernation mode about seven months prior. And in March 2017, the Curiosity rover’s wheels showed signs of their first break, thanks to years of traveling over rough terrain. Such are the risks of sending rover missions to other planets in search of discoveries that can lead to scientific breakthroughs.

But what constitutes an acceptable risk for a robotic mission, and when are mission controllers justified in taking them? As it turns out, a pair of researchers from the Robotics Institute‘s School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh have developed a new approach for weighing the risks against the scientific value of sending planetary rovers into dangerous situations. The researchers are now working with NASA to implement their approach for future robotic missions to the Moon, Mars, and other potentially-hazardous environments in the Solar System.

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Mars Express Got so Close to Phobos That it Needed to be Reprogrammed to Keep the Moon in Focus

Phobos, a moon of Mars.
Japan is sending a spacecraft to Phobos to study it and collect samples for return to Earth. A German rover will be part of the fun. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

Let’s talk about Phobos. We know it’s a moon of Mars and it orbits the planet once every 7.4 hours. It has a huge impact crater called Stickney. It measures about 9 km across. That’s pretty big, considering Phobos itself is 28 km across on its longest side. But, beyond that, Phobos presents something of a mystery.

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Would Mark Watney Have Survived in Real Life, and What This Can Teach Us About Sending Humans to Mars

NASA astronaut, Dr. Mark Watney played by Matt Damon, as he’s stranded on the Red Planet in ‘The Martian’. (Credit: 20th Century Fox)

We want to send humans to Mars eventually, and while this will be both a historic and exciting journey, it could also be tragic and terrible, and we must also address the potential pitfalls and risks of such an adventure. The intent behind this is to allow fans of space exploration to consider the full picture of such an endeavor. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

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InSight Felt the Ground Shake From a Meteorite Impact on Mars

Insight detected earthquake caused by impact that crated this crater.
Boulder-sized blocks of water ice lie around an crater blasted out by a meteoroid on December 24, 2021. NASA's InSight lander measured the earthquake the impact caused. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona.

The Mars InSight lander might be nearing the end of its life on the Red Planet, but its scientific data are still shaking up the planetary science community. That’s because it detected another Marsquake on December 24, 2021. It was a major shaker and generated surface waves that rippled across the crust of the planet. The data from that quake allowed science team members to get a better idea of the Martian crust’s structure.

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Earth’s Hardiest Bacteria Could Survive Hundreds of Millions of Years Just Under the Surface of Mars

Mars
A gibbous Mars. Credit: Mars Hope/NYUAD/Atlas of Mars.

A few years from now, a small capsule will enter Earth’s atmosphere and float to the surface under a parachute. The parachute will likely be radar-reflective so that it can be easily tracked. It may land in Australia’s outback, a popular spot for sample returns. Scientists will take it to a sterilized, secure lab and carefully open it. Inside, there’ll be rock samples from Mars collected by the Perseverance Rover.

If a new study is correct, scientists should look carefully for dormant life in those samples.

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Clearing the Air on a Trip to Mars: the NASA Particle Partition Challenge!

NASA is seeking innovative ideas for its Particle Partition Challenge. Credit: NASA/HeroX

In the coming decade, NASA and the China National Space Agency (CNSA) will send the first astronaut crews to Mars. Unlike missions to the International Space Station (ISS) or the Moon, crewed missions to Mars present several unique challenges because of the distance and transit times involved. For instance, it is only practical to send missions to Mars when our two planets are closest to each other in their orbits (known as “Opposition“), which occurs every 26 months. Even then, it can take up to nine months for spacecraft to reach Mars, creating all kinds of logistics headaches.

On top of that, there’s the need for life support systems that will maintain a breathable atmosphere inside the spacecraft. Like the system that allows astronauts to live aboard the ISS for extended periods, methods are needed to scrub waste carbon from the air and safely sequester it. HeroX, the world’s leading platform for crowdsourced solutions, has launched the NASA Particle Partition Challenge. With a total prize purse of $45,000, this competition is looking for innovative ideas on how to ensure that astronauts can breathe comfortably on the way to Mars!

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Samples Returned From Mars Will be Protected by a Micrometeorite Shield

Micrometeorites are a potential hazard for any space mission, including NASA’s Mars Sample Return. Credits: NASA

In a few years, NASA and the ESA will conduct the long-awaited Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission. This mission will consist of a lander that will pick up the samples, an ascent vehicle that will send them to orbit, an orbiter that will return them to Earth, and an entry vehicle that will send them to the surface. This will be the first time samples obtained directly from Mars will be returned to Earth for analysis. The research this will enable is expected to yield new insights into the history of Mars and how it evolved to become what we see today.

Returning these samples safely to Earth requires that protective measures be implemented at every step, including transfer, ascent, transit, and re-entry. This is especially true when it comes to the Earth Entry System (EES), the disk-shaped vehicle that will re-enter Earth’s atmosphere at the end of the mission. In addition to a heat shield, engineers at NASA’s White Sands Test Facility (WSTF) near Las Cruces, New Mexico, are busy testing shielding that will protect the vehicle from micrometeorites and space debris during transit back to Earth and during re-entry.

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Will Mars finally answer, ‘Are we alone?’

We recently examined how and why the planet Venus could answer the longstanding question: Are we alone? Despite its harsh environment on the surface, its atmosphere could be hospitable for life as we know it. Here, we will examine the planet Mars, aka the Red Planet and the fourth planet in our solar system, which has been marveling sky watchers from ancient times to the present day.

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Mars Could Have Been Warm and wet, While Earth was Still a Glowing Ball of Molten Rock

Could Mars have been a "pale blue dot" while Earth was still forming? Credit: Planet Volumes

Since the 1970s, the ongoing exploration of Mars has revealed that the planet has had a most interesting history. While conditions there are not hospitable to life today, scientists know Mars was once a much warmer, wetter place, with flowing water on its surface. According to new research led by the University of Arizona (UoA), Mars may have been a “pale blue dot” covered with oceans while Earth was still a ball of slowly-cooling molten rock. This discovery could allow for new research into a previously-overlooked period in Mars’ geological history and the formation and evolution of the Solar System.

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