Space and astronomy news
Our eyes can’t see them, but Martian auroras are there, and more commonplace than we once thought. The Martian auroras were first discovered in 2016 by NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft. Now some new results are expanding our knowledge of these unusual auroras.
Continue reading “Mars Has Auroras Too, We Just Can’t See Them”
The ESA’s Mars Express Orbiter is no stranger to the Martian moon Phobos. The spacecraft was launched in June 2003 and has been in orbit around Mars for 16 years. During its long time at Mars, it’s captured detailed images of Phobos, and helped unlocked some of that Moon’s secrets.
In a new sequence of 41 images captured during a recent fly-by, the Mars Express’ High Resolution Stereo Camera imaged Phobos from different angles, capturing images of the moon’s surface features, including the Stickney crater.
Continue reading “Mars Express Takes Photos of Phobos as it Flies Past”
The Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) is a simulated Martian habitat in Utah. It’s owned by the Mars Society, and it’s the society’s second such station. The MDRS is a research facility, and while there, scientists must live as if they were on Mars, including wearing simulated space suits.
One group of visitors wasn’t there for science, but for interior design. Two years ago, a trio of Ikea designers spent three days at the MDRS to develop Ikea products for small spaces. As it turns out, they ended up using their experience at the MDRS to help outfit the MDRS itself.
Continue reading “IKEA’s New Collection is Inspired by the Challenges of Living on Mars”
Some landslides, both here on Earth and on Mars, behave in a puzzling way: They flow a lot further than friction should allow them too.
They can also be massive, including a well-preserved one in Valles Marineris that is the same size as the state of Rhode Island. Scientists have speculated that it might be so large because a layer of ice that existed in the past provided lubrication. But a new study suggests that no ice is needed to explain it.
Continue reading “Landslides Work Differently on Mars, and Now We Might Know Why”
When a huge dust storm on Mars—like the one in 2018—reaches its full power, it can turn into a globe-bestriding colossus. This happens regularly on Mars, and these storms usually start out as a series of smaller, runaway storms. NASA scientists say that these storms can spawn massive towers of Martian dust that reach 80 km high.
And that phenomenon might help explain how Mars lost its water.
Continue reading “When Martian Storms Really Get Going, they Create Towers of Dust 80 Kilometers High”
The Martian atmosphere is a lot different than Earth’s. It’s over 95% carbon dioxide, and contains only trace amounts of oxygen and water vapor. But that trace amount of water vapor still plays a pronounced role in the climate.
Continue reading “NASA Supercomputer Simulates the Weather on Mars”
When it comes to plans for future missions to space, one of the most important aspects will be the use of local resources and autonomous robots. This process is known as In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU), which reduces the amount of equipment and resources that need to be sent ahead or brought along by a mission crew. Meanwhile, autonomous robots can be sent ahead of a crew and have everything prepared for them in advance.
But what about bacteria that can draw iron from extraterrestrial soil, which would then be used to 3D print metal components for a base? That is the idea that is being proposed by PhD candidate Benjamin Lehner of the Delft University of Technology. On Friday (Nov. 22nd), he defended his thesis, which calls for the deployment of an uncrewed mission to Mars that will convert regolith into useable metal using a bacteria-filled bioreactor.
Continue reading “Using Bacteria to Build a Base on Mars”
NASA’s Mars 2020 Rover is heading to Mars soon to look for fossils. The ESA/Roscosmos ExoMars rover is heading to Mars in the same time-frame to carry out its own investigations into Martian habitability. To meet their mission objectives, the scientists working the missions will need to look at a lot of rocks and uncover and understand the clues those rocks hold.
To help those scientists prepare for the daunting task of analyzing and understanding Martian rocks from 160 million km (100 million miles) away, they’ve gone on a field trip to Australia to study stromatolites.
Continue reading “Scientists Search for Ancient Fossils in Australia, Practicing the Techniques They’ll Use on Mars”
An atmospheric drama has been playing out on Mars lately. Up until now, the main actor has been methane, and its unusual, spiking behaviour. But now Oxygen is taking the stage, and performing some theatrics of its own.
Continue reading “Molecular Oxygen on Mars is Behaving Unusually Through the Seasons. A Sign of Life?”
Back in November 2018, NASA announced that the Mars 2020 rover would land in the Jezero Crater. Jezero Crater is a geologically diverse area, with an alluvial fan of sediment deposited by an incoming river. That sediment may contain preserved ancient organic molecules, and the deposit is clearly visible in satellite images of the Crater.
But the crater holds something else that has scientists intrigued, something that doesn’t show up so clearly in visible light images: a “bathtub ring” of carbonates, which scientists think could hold fossils.
Continue reading “Mars 2020 Rover is Going to a Place on Mars That’s Perfect for Preserving Fossils”