Dust Devils Have Left Dark Streaks All Over This Martian Crater

HiPOD from February 16th 2020 showing dust devil trails in a Martian crater. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/UArizona

There may be no life on Mars, but there’s still a lot going on there. The Martian surface is home to different geological process, which overlap and even compete with each other to shape the planet. Orbiters with powerful cameras give us an excellent view of Mars’ changing surface.

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Salt Water Might Still be Able to Collect on the Surface of Mars a Few Days a Year

The dark, narrow streaks flowing downhill on Mars at sites such as this portion of Horowitz Crater are inferred to be formed by seasonal flow of water on modern-day Mars. The streaks are roughly the length of a football field. These dark features on the slopes are called "recurring slope lineae" or RSL. The imaging and topographical information in this processed view come from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

Billions of years ago, Mars had liquid water on its surface in the form of lakes, streams, and even an ocean that covered much of its northern hemisphere. The evidence of this warmer, wetter past is written in many places across the landscape in the form of alluvial fans, deltas, and mineral-rich clay deposits. However, for over half a century, scientists have been debating whether or not liquid water exists on Mars today.

According to new research by Norbert Schorghofer – the Senior Scientist at the Planetary Science Institute – briny water may form intermittently on the surface of Mars. While very short-lived (just a few days a year), the potential presence of seasonal brines on the Martian surface would tell us much about the seasonal cycles of the Red Planet, as well as help to resolve one of its most enduring mysteries.

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Mars Was Hit By a Lot of Protoplanets Early in its History, Taking Longer to Form than Previously Thought.

Scientists developed this illustration of how early Mars may have looked, showing signs of liquid water, large-scale volcanic activity and heavy bombardment from planetary projectiles. SwRI is modeling how these impacts may have affected early Mars to help answer questions about the planet’s evolutionary history. Image Credit: SwRI/Marchi

There are around 61,000 meteorites on Earth, or at least that’s how many have been found. Out of those, about 200 of them are very special: they came from Mars. And those 200 meteorites have been important clues to how Mars formed in the early Solar System.

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Mars 2020 Will be The Third Time That NASA Has Tried to Send a Microphone to Mars

The microphone for the upcoming Mars mission will be attached to the SuperCam, seen here in this illustration zapping a rock with its laser. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

This summer, between mid-July and early August, the Mars 2020 rover will launch, reaching Mars by February of 2021. Once it touched down in the Jezero Crater, it will carry on in the footsteps of its predecessor – the Curiosity rover. This will include searching for evidence of Mars’ past habitability and the possible existence of life (past and present), as well as a sample-return mission.

To accomplish these tasks, the Mars 2020 rover will be relying on an advanced suite of instruments. One of these is the SuperCam, which includes a camera, a laser, and spectrometers and is mounted to the rover’s mast (or “head”). Once operational, this instrument will be used to study the chemistry and mineralogy of Martian rocks and (with any luck) find evidence of fossilized microbial life on Mars.

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A Meteor Smashed Into Mars in 2005, Making this Crater

A meteorite struck Mars sometime between February and July 2005 and formed this crater. It's the HiRise Picture of the Day for February 5, 2020. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/UoArizona.

NASA has repeatedly imaged the Martian surface, and sometimes a feature appears that wasn’t there in prior images. That’s what happened when a meteorite survived the plunge through Mars’ thin atmosphere sometime between February and July, 2005. It created this impact crater north of Valles Marineris.

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This is the Spot Where ESA’s Schiaparelli Crashed Into Mars

Credit: HiRISE/LPL/University of Arizona

On October 19th, 2016, the NASA/ESA ExoMars mission arrived at the Red Planet to begin its study of the surface and atmosphere. While the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) successfully established orbit around Mars, the Schiaparelli Lander crashed on its way to the surface. At the time, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) acquired images of the crash site using its High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera.

In March and December of 2019, the HiRISE camera captured images of this region once again to see what the crash site looked like roughly three years later. The two images show the impact crater that resulted from the crash, which was partially-obscured by dust clouds created by the recent planet-wide dust storm. This storm lasted throughout the summer of 2019 and coincided with Spring in Mars’ northern hemisphere.

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A Glitch Caused Curiosity to Freeze in Place. But It’s Better Now

Image taken by the Curiosity rover's Front Hazard Avoidance Camera (Front Hazcam) on January 17, 2020, (Sol 2648). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Article updated at 3:40 pm CST, 1/24/20.

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover experienced a technical glitch last week, causing it to temporarily lose its sense of direction and freeze in its tracks. But the talented rover repair team back on Earth enabled a fix, and Curiosity is now back in action.

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This is Probably Sandstone Layers on Mars. Absolutely Beautiful

Light-toned layered deposits thought to be sandstones in West Candor Chasma, Mars. They may have formed in an ancient wet and potentially habitable environment. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has been in orbit around Mars for almost 14 years. It carries a variety of instruments with it, including the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) instrument. That instrument has collected thousands of images of Mars.

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Curiosity Looked up and Saw Phobos During the Daytime

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill

For fans and enthusiasts of space exploration, the name Kevin Gill ought to be a familiar one. As a software engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory who specializes in data visualization and analysis, he has a long history of bringing space exploration to life through imagery. Among his most recent offerings is a very interesting pic taken by the Curiosity rover early in its mission.

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Beautiful Image of Ice at Mars’ Northern Polar Cap

This image shows part of the ice cap sitting at Mars’ north pole, complete with bright swathes of ice, dark troughs and depressions, and signs of strong winds and stormy activity. Image Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin , CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

A new image from the ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft shows how beautiful, and desolate, Mars can appear. It also highlights some of the natural process that shape the planet’s surface. The image is of the northern polar region, and it features bright patches of ice, deep dark troughs, and evidence of storms and strong winds.

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