Tag

Mars

All articles tagged with #mars

space35 minutes ago•11 min saved

Mars’ ancient warmth and the mystery of its missing air

Rocks show that early Mars hosted liquid water, but whether it was warm remains debated. The planetary dynamo likely died between about 4.2 and 3.7 billion years ago, removing the magnetic shield and enabling solar wind to strip gas—an escape process MAVEN measured, especially during solar storms. Some carbon dioxide may have been stored in minerals like siderite, so not all missing air left to space. The balance between atmospheric loss and crustal storage is still uncertain, and better palaeomagnetic dating and additional sampling are needed to pin down Mars’ climate history. The cold desert is settled, but the path to understanding how it happened is ongoing.

via Space Daily|

#atmosphere-loss #carbon-cycle #magnetic-field

space15 hours ago•27 min saved

HiRISE Delivers Mars’ 100,000th Image, Revealing Syrtis Major

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured its 100,000th image of the Red Planet with the HiRISE camera, showcasing the Syrtis Major region near Jezero Crater and highlighting the mission's ongoing role in tracking Mars’ changing surface, with public input via the HiWish project.

via My Modern Met|

#hirise #jezero-crater #mars

science18 hours ago•2 min saved

Mars Fungi Could Turn Red Dust into Farmable Soil

Researchers propose using fungi to transform Martian regolith—an alkaline, toxic, nutrient-poor soil—into crop-friendly soil that can host beneficial microbes and plants. Fungal species like Trichoderma and hardy extremophiles, along with mycorrhizal fungi, could enhance nutrient availability and soil structure, potentially reducing the need to ship soil from Earth. While promising, many questions remain about crop safety, radiation, and how to validate the approach; there are also early signs from algae-based Martian-resource fertilizers showing progress toward growing food on Mars.

via Futurism|

#fungi #mars #mycorrhizal-fungi

space4 days ago•6 min saved

Titan: The Next Human Destination After Mars

An op-ed argues Titan should be the next human destination after Mars, highlighting Titan’s thick atmosphere, Earth-like surface pressure, and available resources as a potential stepping‑stone beyond Mars. It emphasizes that Moon and Mars experience must come first, with precursor robotic missions (like Huygens and Dragonfly) and orbital assets to map Titan’s weather and surface. Given Titan’s distance and extreme cold, nuclear power and robust life-support systems will be needed; a Titan-focused discussion (Titan Summit) could help integrate this into NASA’s blueprint for human exploration, inspiring the public while charting a feasible long-term roadmap.

via SpaceNews|

#dragonfly #mars #nasa

science-space5 days ago•15 min saved

Psyche Probe Captures Stunning Crescent Mars During Gravity Flyby

NASA's Psyche spacecraft flew by Mars on May 15, using a gravity assist to boost its speed by about 1,000 mph and capturing high-resolution images, including a crescent view of Mars' polar ice caps and wind-carved craters from roughly 2,900 miles above the surface, as it continues toward the metallic asteroid 16 Psyche (arrival expected in 2029); the flyby also served to calibrate instruments for the longer journey.

via The Weather Channel|

#gravity-assist #mars #nasa

space6 days ago•12 min saved

The Myth of Opportunity's Last Words: A Paraphrase That Outlived the Mars Rover

Opportunity died in 2018 during a global dust storm, and its final transmission was ordinary telemetry — numbers showing power loss and darkness — not a spoken sentence. A journalist later paraphrased the readings to convey what the data meant, and that paraphrase spread as if the rover had uttered it. The misquote persists because people mourn the machine, not because Opportunity voiced a farewell. The true story is that the rover lasted 55 times its designed life, delivered real data, and the emotional impact comes from human grief, not the rover’s words.

via Space Daily|

#mars #misquote #nasa

space7 days ago•4 min saved

Mars Flyby Calibrates NASA’s Psyche Mission Aiming at a Distant Asteroid

NASA’s Psyche spacecraft used a Mars gravity assist to boost its trajectory toward the metallic asteroid 16 Psyche while calibrating its cameras and instruments, capturing Mars images and testing data-processing tools. The flyby brought it within about 4,609 kilometers (2,864 miles) of Mars and increased speed to roughly 1,600 kilometers per hour (994 mph), keeping the mission on track to reach Psyche in 2029 to map the asteroid and gain insights into Earth's interior.

via WIRED|

#asteroid #mars #nasa

space-exploration7 days ago•74 min saved

Pillbug robot to shed thousands of tiny wind-powered drones for Martian lava-tube mapping

Scientists are proposing a biomimicry-inspired mission concept in which a pillbug‑like “roly‑poly” robot would crawl into Martian lava tubes and release thousands of micro‑drones (the “dandelion drones”). The drones would be powered by piezoelectric energy and carried into the caves by a parachute, then flown by Mars’ winds to map the tunnel network and collect environmental data. Because sunlight doesn’t reach the caves, the drones would not rely on solar power and would be painted white to travel farther. The plan highlights wind in caves as both a potential aid and a challenge, and includes a high‑powered fan to keep drones aloft if winds are weak. NASA and other groups have explored lava tubes on Mars and in analog sites, and the concept underscores broader interest in using drone swarms to scout difficult terrain (including future targets like Titan’s caves).

via Space|

#biomimicry #dandelion-drones #lava-tubes

science11 days ago•183 min saved

Psyche's Mars Flyby Reveals a Striking Crescent View

NASA's Psyche spacecraft captured thousands of Mars images during a May 15 flyby, offering a rare crescent view that also helped calibrate its cameras; the encounter brought Psyche within about 2,864 miles (4,609 kilometers) of Mars and gave it a roughly 1,000 mph speed boost while nudging its orbital plane by about 1 degree on the way to the metallic asteroid 16 Psyche, which it is set to reach in 2029 to map and study whether it preserves an early planet's core.

via CNN|

#flyby #mars #mars-crescent

space11 days ago•71 min saved

Mars rock stack photographed by Perseverance likely wind-sculpted

NASA’s Perseverance rover captured an image on May 13 (Sol 1859) with the Mastcam-Z cameras showing a small stack of rocks on the Martian surface. Scientists say it’s more likely the stack formed by wind erosion (or ancient water exposing and splitting a rock) rather than a deliberate or human-made arrangement, fitting Mars’ wind-dominated geology.

via Space|

#mars #mastcam-z #perseverance

science12 days ago•6 min saved

Mars Express Delivers Ultra-High-Res View of a 1,300-km Martian Flood Channel

ESA’s Mars Express released high-resolution imagery of Shalbatana Vallis, a 1,300-km channel on Mars formed by ancient groundwater floods about 3.5 billion years ago. The new views reveal chaotic terrain, wrinkle ridges, volcanic ash deposits, buried craters, and other geological details that shed light on Mars’s watery past and the possibility of ancient oceans near Chryse Planitia. The mission has mapped the planet in detail since 2003 and is expected to continue operations through 2034.

via Indian Defence Review|

#ancientfloodwaters #mars #marsexpress

technology12 days ago•4 min saved

Bio-Inspired 'Swimming' Wheels Could Redefine Mars Sand Driving

Researchers at Universität Würzburg developed bio-inspired wheels that mimic a sandfish lizard to swim through soft Martian sand, reducing sinking and enabling safer, more efficient rover traversal; field tests refined wheel width and mass, and future work includes real-time terrain-adaptive control for autonomous navigation under the VaMEx program.

via The Daily Galaxy|

#bio-inspired #mars #robotics

space12 days ago•38 min saved

Perseverance Prepares to Conquer a Martian Marathon

NASA's Perseverance rover is gearing up to cover a marathon-distance journey on Mars—roughly 26 miles across the Jezero Crater—testing endurance, autonomy, and long-range science capabilities as mission teams monitor progress across multiple sols.

via Yahoo|

#jezerocrater #mars #nasa

space12 days ago•14 min saved

Living on Mars time: NASA engineers bend their days to a 24h39m sol

Two NASA rovers, Curiosity and Perseverance, run on a Martian day of 24 hours 39 minutes, so JPL staff spend about 90 sols living on Mars time, shifting their wake/sleep cycles and meals to align with Martian sunrise. Because of the signal delay, commands are scripted for the next sol rather than realtime control, and coping measures like blue-light lighting, blackout curtains, and timed caffeine help manage sleep loss and social dislocation. After the commissioning phase, teams gradually revert to Earth time, aided by increased rover autonomy (Mars Global Localization) that reduces the need for humans to chase Martian dawn.

via Space Daily|

#circadian-rhythm #curiosity #mars

science13 days ago•3 min saved

Mars Shows Earth-like Space Weather: Zwan-Wolf Effect Detected in Its Atmosphere

NASA’s MAVEN detected the Zwan-Wolf effect, a magnetic-field-driven plasma squeeze, in Mars’ ionosphere during the 2023 solar storm—an unexpected Earth-like phenomenon on an unmagnetized world that could change how scientists understand space weather on Mars and similar bodies; the mission later went silent in December 2025, prompting an anomaly review.

via Gizmodo|

#mars #maven #nasa