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That's the sun setting over the rim of Gale Crater on Mars, as shot by the Curiosity Rover. Notice some differences? Well, first of all, the sun looks a lot smaller. Of course, it should look smaller considering Mars is farther away from the sun than Earth is. This way, the sun looks approximately two-thirds as big as from our own planet. Next, that's a blue-tinted sunset, fading out in a pinkish tinge. In terms of colors, that's more or less the exact opposite of what happens here on Earth where sunsets tend to fade from warm, ruddy colors like orange-red. This can be explained by the differences between airborne particles in the two atmospheres.
NASA has partnered with a private company to design and build an oxygen production facility for a Martian outpost or colony. The make the oxygen, bacteria and algae would use the nitrogen-rich Martian soil to make the precious oxygen, essential for the astronauts' survival. It can be used to make air, water and fuel.
Using its Mast Camera, the Curiosity Rover has snapped stunning images of a blue sunset on the Red Planet. The blue-tinted images show the Sun dipping into the horizon as blue streaks shroud the sky across the evening light.
Astronomers have known for quite a while that Mars has distinct polar ice caps, but the Red Planet might also have belts of glaciers at its central latitudes in both the southern and northern hemispheres. These huge glaciers are covered by a thick layer of dust which masks them and makes them seem like they are actually part of the surface of the ground.
Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the moon, is no stranger to staggering photos. His most famous shot includes the first ever selfie in space. Now, while visiting Stonehenge, Aldrin posted on Twitter a photo of him sporting a t-shirt with a stylized Mars logo a la NASA, which read "Get your ass to Mars". A long time supporter of inter-planetary exploration, both publicly during his numerous TV appearances or press editorials and institutionally during his stints in front of Congress, this latest publicity shot aims to inspire the public and garner support for a manned mission to Mars.
Scientists have found tantalizing evidence regarding Mars' wet past - according to new research, the Red Planet may have once had a huge ocean, containing 5 million cubic miles of water with a depth of over a mile.
NASA's Curiosity Mars rover is expected to remain stationary for at least a couple of days after a shortcircuit has rendered its arm useless for the time being. The engineering problem occurred on February 27 as the rover was preparing to start drilling in the Martian soil.
Mars - our neighbor, the Red Planet... is not actually red. The first look at what’s under Mars’s dusty red surface has revealed a clearly greyish blue rocky layer.
Selected from more than 200,000 applicants, 50 men and 50 women have become the final contenders for the one-way trip to Mars. A Dutch not-for-profit company is planning to send groups of four people on a one-way trip to the red planet in about a decade to start a permanent human settlement - now, we can take a better look at those people.
Mysterious cloud-like formations hovering over Mars challenge our understanding of the Red Planet's climate. Interestingly, amateur astronomers spotted the bizarre feature rising off the edge of the red planet in March and April of 2012 and since then, no satisfying answer regarding to their formation has been put forth. Now, scientists have concocted a new theory, but there's only one problem - it poses more questions than it answers.
The next Mars exploration rover will likely feature a helicopter drone, which is expected to act as scouting drone to improve navigation. According to officials at NASA JPL, the drone could help the rover cover three times the distance Curiosity drives on a daily basis. We have Curiosity to thank for loads of new insights […]
Curiosity is preparing for its second drill on Mars - its eyeing a rock which may have a salty story to tell. The rock may be a former lake bed, from which all the water has evaporated.
As far as manned spaceflight is concerned, all attention seems to be directed toward Mars, which makes sense after all considering it’s the most Earth-like planet in the solar system. It’s not as hospitable as it was a few billion years ago, though, and because of the long trip that realistically takes at least two […]
Only weeks after it became operational around Mars‘ orbit, NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission has uncovered a new process by which the solar wind can penetrate deep into a planetary atmosphere, past the ionosphere even this shouldn’t have been possible. It seems like a magic trick at the moment, but in time this mechanism […]
It’s like Christmas before Christmas – the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has started sending back images it took of the red planet, and there’s just so many fantastic stuff it feels like Christmas has come earlier this year. Now, the MRO sent back images peculiar features along the slopes of dunes: long, sharply defined grooves (pictured) that seem […]
New evidence beamed back by the Curiosity rover and analyzed by NASA JPL scientists suggests that the Gale Crater on Mars had large lakes, rivers and deltas for millions or tens of millions of years. The implications are huge, since if Mars ever had a chance of fostering life, it needed to not only have flowing water […]
A NASA probe has taken a picture of a surprising pie-like geological feature on Mars. Scientists are not yet sure what caused the feature, but the likely culprit is lava. The 1.2 mile (1.9 km) wide feature was imaged by the HiRISE camera aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) appears like an island of iron in […]
In all likelihood, we won’t be seeing a manned mission for Mars before 2030, but until this happens forefront research is pushing the limits so we can finally get there. This includes synthetic biology, which promises to play a key role in reducing payload – a major concern in every space application, manned or not […]
Intricate polygons on Mars could be a clear indication of a wet past for the Red Planet. Most crater floor polygons have diameters ranging from 15 to 350 m, and it’s still not clear how and why they appeared – though one theory seems to be gaining ground: the idea of former lake beds. Polygons […]
We were telling you a while ago how India launched a probe towards Mars, and how it was successful in reaching the Red Planet’s orbit – a magnificent achievement for any country, let alone India, which is still a developing country. To make their success even more remarkable, they are the first country ever to […]
We were telling you yesterday about India’s Mangalyaan shuttle, which was set to enter Martian orbit. Here’s the update: everything went fine, Mangalyaan has entered the red planet’s orbit in a historic moment for Indian science. “History has been created today”, said Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. We have achieved the near impossible. I congratulate all ISRO scientists […]
India's Mars Orbiter Mission or MOM, for short, is gearing up to enter Mars' orbit this Wednesday, after the dormant main engine on the spacecraft was test-fired flawlessly on Monday. If the maneuver proves successful, then India will join an exclusive list of countries who have deployed Mars explorers, like the US, Russia, Japan and Europe.
NASA astronauts will once again travel from the Earth to the International Space Station – under groundbreaking contracts announced today. The space agency announced that Boeing and SpaceX were selected to transport U.S. crews to and from the space station using their CST-100 and Crew Dragon spacecraft in 2017, finally ending their dependence on Russia. “From day […]
A brilliant technology reaching its limits Carrying heavier spacecraft to Mars and then safely landing it at supersonic speeds in the Martian atmosphere is no easy feat – and NASA could use any bit of help they can get. NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility is playing an integral role in solving those problems with the Low Density Supersonic […]
Mark Lemmon is an associate professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University and a camera operator for numerous Mars missions, especially those involving the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity. These two rovers are considered nothing short of heroes by the men and women at mission control who were part of the projects. Spirit, for instance, […]
Whenever alien invasions are concerned, most people tend to image extraterrestrial spaceships landing on Earth, not the other way around. In reality, this alien invasion most likely will happen or already has happen in reverse, as Earth-based life forms could reach distant asteroids or planets, like Mars, hitching rides on human spaceship. To assess this […]
The Red Planet is dear to many of us. There’s a sort of brethren feeling, something that relates Earth and Mars together which makes people fond of the planet, but also at the same time weary. Weary because it’s dead planet, and because people don’t want the same thing to happen to Earth. The Martian […]
The photo right above was captured by the Curiosity Rover’s right-hand navigation camera , currently deployed on Mars and on route to Mount Sharp, which shows a striking flare of light seemingly torching near the horizon. Taken on April 4th, the photo somehow made its way to the general public (bad idea NASA) and stirred international […]
A new massive computer model that simulates the formation of the solar system from its early days when all it used to comprise was a huge disk of matter to present day shows that Earth’s moon formed some 65 million years later than previous estimates led us to believe. The method provides a new way […]
A huge megaflood may have carved the U-shaped canyons we can now see in Idaho some 46,000 years ago. The similarities suggest that the same phenomenon occurred on Mars as well were similar geological formations were found. After studying several U-shaped canyons in south-central Idaho, US, geologists at Caltech propose that these characteristic formations were […]
NASA recently announced that it will be tasking the Curiosity rover, currently exploring Mars’ surface at the Gale Crater, with a new mission that wasn’t included in the initial plan. After Curiosity provided some of the most fantastic scientific clues in recent history when it found evidence that Mars could have supported certain kind of […]
Geologists have now found the most compelling evidence of granites on Mars – something which prompts more complex theories about the geology and tectonic activity on the Red Planet. Granites and basalts Granites are igneous rocks, pretty common on the surface of Earth. It is often called a ‘felsic’ (white rock) – because it is […]
India is a sort of economic paradox. Its general population is among the poorest in the world, yet it is still wealthy in many respects. It wouldn’t be a mistake to call India a space superpower, at least in the way the term gets tossed in the press. Attesting this fact is the country’s recently […]
Valles Marineris is the largest canyon on Mars, and in the solar system for that matter that we know of. It’s 4000 km long, 200km wide, 10 km deep and stunningly beautiful. Just so you can get a glimpse of how beautiful it is, ESA just recently posted a movie that focuses on an enclosed 8 km-deep […]
More and more discoveries seem to hint at a watery past for Mars. Now, NASA research shows that hunks of frozen carbon dioxide (dry ice) may glide down some Martian sand dunes on cushions of gas similar to miniature hovercraft, plowing away as they go down. This study could explain one of the mysteries of […]
Typically on Earth, days usually have a temperature maximum somewhere after lunch, and a minimum during the night. But for Mars, things are pretty different: “We see a temperature maximum in the middle of the day, but we also see a temperature maximum a little after midnight,” said Armin Kleinboehl of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory […]
Buried deep at some 2.4 kilometers beneath the surface, in the vicinity of an underground mine near Ontario, Canada, scientists have stumbled across what may actually be the oldest water on Earth. Isolated for more than a billion years, the water pocket holds invaluable clues that may hint how ancient life formed, while also shinning hope that […]
Billions of dollars and decades worth of research have been invested in fusion propelling technology, so that one day we might breach current spaceflight limitations that offer little hope of straying too far from our planet. Researchers at Washington University have recently made great strides forward in this respect and have successfully tested each stage […]
Billions of years ago, Mars had a much richer atmosphere than it has today, which is rather an understatement considering how thin it is. Some scientists hypothesize that once Mars was capable of holding liquid water at its surface, with recent evidence adding weight to these claims. Recent measurements made by Curiosity‘s instruments highlight a […]
The Curiosity rover is in a bit of trouble and is currently facing it’s longest period of inactivity since its touchdown on Mars. At the beginning of March, the rover experience fatal memory errors in one of its two side computers, presumably due to radiation exposure, which forced scientists on Earth to put the rover into […]
I just finished watching NASA‘s latest and definitely most important Curiosity briefing to date. There the Curiosity team announced findings nothing short of spectacular: a slew of chemical elements, minerals and other chemicals have been found in the rover’s first drilled rock sample on Mars, hinting that, at least in the vicinity of the sample […]
Our understanding and appreciation of Mars has greatly shifted in the past decade alone. If previously scientists used to thought the planet had been dead and bared geologically-wise for billions of years, recent evidence shows that Mars has been marked by a series of geological events. Using radar technology, scientists have now found water-carved channels buried […]
Millionaire Dennis Tito, 72, is widely known as the first private citizen to fly into space in 2001. But being the entrepreneurial spirit he is, he wants to go even further – he plans to send two astronauts to Mars in 2018. We’re still awaiting for the next week conference in which he will announce […]
Recently, Curiosity rover made its most complex maneuver since it landed on Mars after it drilled a promising rock, offering scientists with invaluable geological information otherwise inaccessible. This is the first time a robot has carried out a drilling operation on another planet, and the last important check in Curiosity’s scientific arsenal, signaling all the […]
Ridges of Martian impact craters could be fossils of cracks in the Martian surface, formed by minerals deposited by flowing water, according to a new research. The findings, accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters, one of the most prestigious journals in the field, could explain a mysterious network of ridges that vein across the […]
Using combined imagery delivered by the High-Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) and recent color channel data, the European Space Agency has recently discovered the vestiges of an ancient river that used to flow through Mars’ highlands. The river is 1,000 miles long and at some points 4 miles wide and 1,000 feet deep. The images are simply […]
The ultimate goal of all current Mars missions and observations is that of finding evidence of life or, on the contrary, collect data that would once and for all flag the planet as barren and devoid of life. Recent findings from scientists at University of Florida both help ease and complicate this quest after it’s […]
There seems to be consisting evidence supplied both by past and recent rover missions – like the ever sturdy Opportunity, the eager newcomer Curiosity – and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter – a spacecraft currently hovering over Mars – that our neighboring red planet was once most likely covered by oceans and lakes and was layered by a thick […]
A real life Peter-Weyland, SpaceX founder and self-made billionaire, Elon Musk, has stirred up controversy with his space exploration claims on a number of occasions, mostly because they’re considered rather “too ambitious”. A few months ago Musk suggested that in a mere few decades, his company will be offering $500,000 there and back trips to Mars. […]
A study conducted by researchers from the Carnegie Institution for Science concluded that both Earth and Mars got their water from the same source chondritic meteorites. However, unlike Earth, Martian rocks containing atmospheric volatiles such as water don’t get recycled into the planet’s deep interior. The origin, history, and evolution of Martian water are […]
