Mars Archives

March 10, 2022March 10, 2022 by Andy Tomaswick

Future Mars Explorers Could be Farming Oxygen From Landscapes Like This

Viking’s biochemistry experiments have been among the most hotly debated scientific results of all time. The lander famously collected samples from the Red Planet in 1976, in an experiment called “Label Release.” Scientists watched with bated breath as oxygen was released from the sample after it was subjected to a liquid slurry. They were then left scratching their heads as that oxygen production continued after the sample was sterilized via 160 degree C heat. Scientists now really agree that the oxygen production that Viking noticed was an abiotic process. But that also leads to a potential opportunity as some scientists think we can make oxygen farms out of a system similar to that used on Viking itself.

March 8, 2022March 8, 2022 by Evan Gough

There’s a Big Rock Stuck Inside one of Perseverance’s Wheels

This image from early March 2022 shows NASA's Perseverance Rover has a rock going along for a ride in one of its wheels. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

It looks like the Perseverance rover has an unwanted passenger, a rock stuck inside one of its wheels. The image of the stone was selected as the “Image of the Week” for Week 54 (Feb. 20 – 26, 2022) for the Perseverance mission. The Image of the Week is selected by public input. Perseverance captured this image on February 25th, 2022.

March 3, 2022March 3, 2022 by Andy Tomaswick

Mars Explorers are Going to Need air, and Lots of it. Here’s a Technology That Might Help Them Breath Easy

In situ resource utilization (ISRU) is still a very early science. Therefore, the technology utilized in it could be improved upon. One such technology that created one of the most useful materials for ISRU (oxygen) is MOXIE – the Mars OXygen In-situ Resource Utilization Experiment. A small-scale model of a MOXIE was recently tested on the Perseverance last year. Its primary goal is to create oxygen out of the Martian atmosphere.

March 1, 2022March 1, 2022 by Nicholas Castle

A Mars Meteorite Shows Evidence of a Massive Impact Billions of Years ago

This artist’s impression shows how Mars may have looked about four billion years ago. The young planet Mars would have had enough water to cover its entire surface in a liquid layer about 140 metres deep, but it is more likely that the liquid would have pooled to form an ocean occupying almost half of Mars’s northern hemisphere, and in some regions reaching depths greater than 1.6 kilometres. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser

Researchers at Australia’s Curtin University have discovered evidence of a massive impact on the Martian surface after 4.45 billion years ago. This may not seem like a surprising revelation – after all, we know that there were several large impacts on Mars, like Hellas and Argyre, and we know that large impacts happened frequently in the early solar system – so why is this a big deal?

February 25, 2022March 1, 2022 by Nancy Atkinson

Curiosity Finds a Bizarre Rock on Mars that Looks Like a Flower

Curiosity rover obtained this 'Hand Lens' extreme close-up of one of the very small and rather unusual concretion features. This one has been called 'Blackthorn Salt'. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill

The Curiosity rover took a picture of something pretty enticing this week on the surface of Mars. While the object in question looks like a tiny little flower or maybe even some type of organic feature, the rover team confirmed this object is a mineral formation, with delicate structures that formed by mineral precipitating from water. The size of this tiny object is just 1 centimeter.

February 24, 2022February 24, 2022 by Andy Tomaswick

Here’s What China is Planning to do in Space for the Next 5 Years

Central planning is literately central to any communist country, though its history has mixed results. As part of that planning, bureaucrats in all parts of the government are occasionally tasked with coming up with goals and milestones for their specific part of the government. These usually take the form of a five or ten-year plan, which is what the China National Space Agency (CNSA) released on January 28th.

February 23, 2022February 23, 2022 by Andy Tomaswick

China Releases a Selfie-Stick Video of Tianwen-1 Above Mars

Selfies have become ubiquitous everywhere – even Mars. Now, the Tianwen 1 orbiter is getting into the spirit with a selfie taken high up in Martian orbit.

February 21, 2022February 21, 2022 by Matt Williams

NASA and HeroX are Crowdsourcing the Search for Life on Mars

This low-angle self-portrait of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows the vehicle at the site from which it reached down to drill into a rock target called "Buckskin." The MAHLI camera on Curiosity's robotic arm took multiple images on Aug. 5, 2015, that were stitched together into this selfie. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

For almost sixty years, robotic missions have been exploring the surface of Mars in search of potential evidence of life. More robotic missions will join in this search in the next fifteen years, the first sample return from Mars (courtesy of the Perseverance rover) will arrive here at Earth, and crewed missions will be sent there. Like their predecessors, these missions will rely on mass spectrometry to analyze samples of the Martian sands to look for potential signs of past life.

Given how much data we can expect from these missions, NASA is looking for new methods to analyze geological samples. To this end, NASA has partnered with the global crowdsourcing platform HeroX and the data-science company DrivenData to launch the Mars Spectrometry: Detect Evidence for Past Life challenge. With a prize purse of $30,000, this Challenge seeks innovative methods that rely on machine learning to automatically analyze Martian geological samples for potential signs of past life.

February 15, 2022February 15, 2022 by Matt Williams

Lasers Could Send Missions to Mars in Only 45 Days

Swarm of laser-sail spacecraft leaving the solar system. Credit: Adrian Mann

NASA and China plan to mount crewed missions to Mars in the next decade. While this represents a tremendous leap in terms of space exploration, it also presents significant logistical and technological challenges. For starters, missions can only launch for Mars every 26 months when our two planets are at the closest points in their orbit to each other (during an “Opposition“). Using current technology, it would take six to nine months to transit from Earth to Mars.

Even with nuclear-thermal or nuclear-electric propulsion (NTP/NEP), a one-way transit could take 100 days to reach Mars. However, a team of researchers from Montreal’s McGill University assessed the potential of a laser-thermal propulsion system. According to their study, a spacecraft that relies on a novel propulsion system – where lasers are used to heat hydrogen fuel – could reduce transit times to Mars to just 45 days!

February 11, 2022February 11, 2022 by Evan Gough

We Might Know Why Mars Lost its Magnetic Field

This figure shows a cross-section of the planet Mars revealing an inner, high density core buried deep within the interior. Dipole magnetic field lines are drawn in blue, showing the global scale magnetic field that one associates with dynamo generation in the core. Mars must have one day had such a field, but today it is not evident. Perhaps the energy source that powered the early dynamo has shut down. The differentiation of the planet interior - heavy elements like iron sinking towards the center of the planet - can provide energy as can the formation of a solid core from the liquid. Credit: NASA/JPL/GSFC

Mars is a parched planet ruled by global dust storms. It’s also a frigid world, where night-time winter temperatures fall to -140 C (-220 F) at the poles. But it wasn’t always a dry, barren, freezing, inhospitable wasteland. It used to be a warm, wet, almost inviting place, where liquid water flowed across the surface, filling up lakes, carving channels, and leaving sediment deltas.

But then it lost its magnetic field, and without the protection it provided, the Sun stripped away the planet’s atmosphere. Without its atmosphere, the water went next. Now Mars is the Mars we’ve always known: A place that only robotic rovers find hospitable.

How exactly did it lose its magnetic shield? Scientists have puzzled over that for a long time.