Tag Archive for 'Mars'

These images from the THEMIS camera on NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter show Phobos during different phases: waxing, waning and full. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / ASU / NAU.

Mars Odyssey Captures New Thermal Images of Phobos

Jun 8, 2020 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) camera on NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter have captured new infrared images of Phobos, the...

Researchers Find New Evidence that Mars Once Had Massive Ring

Jun 4, 2020 by News Staff

Mars had a massive ring system several billion years ago, according to new research from the SETI Institute and Purdue University. An artist’s impression...

Electric currents (blue and red arrows) envelop Mars in a nested, double-loop structure that wraps continuously around the planet from its day side to its night side. These current loops distort the solar wind magnetic field (not pictured), which drapes around Mars to create an induced magnetosphere around the planet. In the process, the currents electrically connect Mars’ upper atmosphere and the induced magnetosphere to the solar wind, transferring electric and magnetic energy generated at the boundary of the induced magnetosphere (faint inner paraboloid) and at the solar wind bow shock (faint outer paraboloid). Image credit: NASA / Goddard / MAVEN / CU Boulder / SVS / Cindy Starr.

Researchers Create Map of Electric Currents in Magnetosphere of Mars

May 27, 2020 by News Staff

Using five years of magnetic field data obtained by NASA’s MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN) spacecraft, a team of scientists has created...

Gale crater is 155 km in diameter and now holds a layered mountain rising about 5 km above the crater floor. This illustration depicts a lake of water partially filling the crater. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / ASU / UA / Sci-News.com.

Curiosity Finds Evidence of Mars’ Ancient Ice-Covered Lakes

May 21, 2020 by News Staff

Using data from the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument on NASA’s rover Curiosity, researchers have found that certain minerals in rocks at Gale...

This image from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) shows a hill with a central crater. Such features have been interpreted as both mud volcanoes (really a sedimentary structure) and as actual volcanoes (the erupting lava kind). They occur on the floor of Valles Marineris below a closed topographic contour that could have held a lake, and the compaction of wet sediments may have created mud volcanoes. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / University of Arizona.

Martian Mud Volcanoes May Look Similar to Lava Flows Found on Earth

May 19, 2020 by News Staff

Mud flows exposed to the low atmospheric pressures found on Mars will behave similar to lava flows in Hawaii or Iceland, also known as pahoehoe flows,...

This image from ESA’s Mars Express shows a beautiful slice of the Red Planet from the northern polar cap downwards, and highlights cratered, pockmarked swathes of the Terra Sabaea and Arabia Terra regions. It comprises data gathered on June 17, 2019. This image was created using data from the nadir and color channels of Mars Express’ High Resolution Stereo Camera. The nadir channel is aligned perpendicular to the surface of Mars, as if looking straight down at the surface. North is up. Image credit: ESA / DLR / FU Berlin.

Pockets of Salty Water May Exist on Present-Day Mars

May 14, 2020 by News Staff

A new study shows that pockets of brine can form and persist from the equator to high latitudes on the Martian surface for a few percent of the year for...

Channel-forms preserved in sedimentary layers in Hellas Planitia on Mars. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / University of Arizona / Matt Balme.

Deep, Perennial or Semi-Perennial Rivers Flowed on Early Mars

May 7, 2020 by News Staff

While the present-day Martian surface is generally dry and cold, its sedimentary rocks contain compelling evidence for the former presence of liquid water....

Orange-colored carbonate grains in the ALH 84001 meteorite. Image credit: Koike et al, doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-15931-4.

Researchers Find Nitrogen-Bearing Organics in Ancient Martian Meteorite

May 1, 2020 by Enrico de Lazaro

Four-billion-year-old carbonates in a Martian meteorite called Allan Hills (ALH) 84001 contain nitrogen-bearing organic molecules, according to a new study...

$Illustration showing the present-day hydrogen reservoirs in and on Mars. The mass fractions (pie chart) of Martian water are based on the mass of water in the bulk crust (C), the mantle (M) and the combined inventory (A) of the atmosphere and polar ice deposits (PID). The mantle mass fraction is the combination of depleted shergottites (DS) and enriched shergottites (ES). Image credit: Barnes et al, doi: 10.1038/s41561-020-0552-y.$

Early Mars Had Multiple Water Sources, New Study Shows

Mar 31, 2020 by News Staff

An analysis of two Martian meteorites — Northwest Africa (NWA) 7034 and Allan Hills (ALH) 84001 — shows that Mars likely received water from...

This selfie was taken by Curiosity on February 26, 2020; the crumbling rock layer at the top of the image is the Greenheugh Pediment, which the rover climbed soon after taking the image. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS.

Curiosity Sends New Selfie from Red Planet

Mar 25, 2020 by News Staff

NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity captured a stunning new selfie on February 26, 2020 (the 2687th Martian day, or sol, of the mission). This selfie was taken...

Perspective view of the Moreux crater. Image credit: ESA / DLR / FU Berlin / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.

Mars Express Sees Intriguing Geological Features in Moreux Crater

Mar 10, 2020 by News Staff

The High Resolution Stereo Camera on ESA’s Mars Express orbiter has captured stunning images of Moreux crater, a huge impact crater in the Terra Sabaea...

This artist’s concept depicts NASA’s Mars rover Perseverance on the surface of the Red Planet. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

NASA’s Next Mars Rover Gets Official Name: Perseverance

Mar 6, 2020 by News Staff

Perseverance is the latest in a long line of Red Planet rovers to be named by school-age children, from Sojourner in 1997 to the Spirit and Opportunity...

Curiosity captured this panorama of the Martian surface between November 24 and December 1, 2019. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS.

Curiosity Captures 1.8-Billion-Pixel Panorama of Martian Surface

Mar 5, 2020 by News Staff

NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity has captured its highest-resolution panorama (high-resolution file, 2.43 GB) yet of the Martian surface. The new panorama...

An artist’s impression of a terraformed Mars. Image credit: Daein Ballard / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Martian Thiophenes May Be Biological in Origin, Astrobiologists Say

Mar 5, 2020 by News Staff

NASA’s Curiosity rover recently discovered various classes of organic matter in the Martian sediments. One intriguing group of detected organic compounds...

NASA’s InSight Mission to Mars Releases Preliminary Results

Feb 25, 2020 by News Staff

More than a year after NASA’s Mars InSight lander touched down in ‘Homestead hollow,’ a sand-filled impact crater on the western side of a flat,...

Graphic illustrating NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft encountering plasma layers at Mars. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / CI lab.

MAVEN Detects Sporadic ‘Layers’ and ‘Rifts’ in Martian Ionosphere

Feb 3, 2020 by News Staff

NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft has detected sporadic ‘layers’ and ‘rifts’ in the ionosphere — the electrically...

This HRSC image shows plumes of dust clouds over the ice cap at Mars’ north pole. The landscape here is a rippled mix of color. Dark red and ochre-hued troughs appear to cut through the icy white of the polar cap; these form part of a wider system of depressions that spiral outwards from the very center of the pole. Visible to the left of the frame are a few extended streams of clouds, aligned perpendicularly to a couple of the troughs. These are thought to be caused by small local storms that kick up dust into the Martian atmosphere, eroding scarps and slopes as they do so and slowly changing the appearance of the troughs over time. Image credit: ESA / DLR / FU Berlin / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.

ESA’s Mars Express Orbiter Sees Dust Clouds over Martian North Pole

Jan 17, 2020 by News Staff

The High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) onboard ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft has captured a new image of the icy cap at the Martian north pole, complete...

Martian moon Phobos. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / University of Arizona.

Mars Express Captures New Views of Martian Moon Phobos

Dec 17, 2019 by News Staff

On November 17, 2019, ESA’s Mars Express orbiter made a close flyby of Phobos, the larger and inner of the two natural satellites of Mars. The probe...

Computer-generated visualization of the orbital paths (white dots) taken by NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft as it mapped winds (blue lines) in the Martian upper atmosphere; red lines coming from the white dots represent local wind speed and direction, measured by MAVEN’s Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer instrument. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / MAVEN / SVS / Greg Shirah.

NASA’s MAVEN Orbiter Maps Martian Upper Atmospheric Winds

Dec 13, 2019 by News Staff

Using NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft, a team of planetary researchers have measured the speed and direction of winds...

On Earth, the Northern and Southern lights occur when the solar wind (electrically charged particles from the Sun) follow our planet’s geomagnetic field lines to the poles and collide with the upper atmosphere. Mars lacks a global magnetic field, so instead the solar wind piles up in front of Mars in a bow shock, which blocks charged particles from reaching the bulk of the atmosphere. However, in a process first observed by NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft, some solar wind protons can slip past the bow shock by first bonding with electrons from the Martian upper atmosphere to form hydrogen atoms. Because these hydrogen atoms are electrically neutral, they can pass through the bow shock and go on to create an ultraviolet proton aurora on the dayside of Mars. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

‘Proton Aurora’ is Most Common Type of Aurora on Mars, Researchers Say

Dec 13, 2019 by News Staff

Proton aurora, a type of Martian aurora first identified in 2016, forms when protons from the solar wind interact with hydrogen in the extended portions...

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