Most images depicting other planets in the solar system illustrate the North at the top and South at the bottom. A picture snapped by the European Space Agency’s Mars Express spacecraft on June 19th, 2017, on the other hand, does just the opposite. Image Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO A public statement released by the ESA elucidates how the Mars Express spacecraft grabbed this image as it was traveling from North to South during a routine calibration event. Furthermore, each of the onboard high-resolution stereo camera’s nine channels made this level of unprecedented detail possible. Still not entirely sure what you're looking at? You can use the image below for reference: Image Credit: NASA/Viking, FU Berlin Related: Is Mars' environment more hostile than initially thought? At the bottom of the picture, you can discern Mars’ dark and mysterious North pole. There, you can recognize traces of water ice and dust. Remnants of evaporated carbon dioxide and water vapor produced by the warmth of the spring season form the cloudy white regions just South of the North pole. After the temperatures cool down during the fall and winter months, these evaporated gasses retreat back to where they came, and solid ices build back up at Mars’ North pole all over again. The top of the image shows off Mars’ bright and clear equatorial region, which tells a starkly-different story about the red planet’s environment. If you look closely enough, you can make out a bevy of volcanoes and surface imperfections. One of the largest in the frame is Alba Mons, which stretches more than 1,000 kilometers in diameter. Although Mars Express merely snapped this photograph for equipment calibration purposes, its value doesn't stop there. Fascinating perspectives like this one allow planetary scientists to study neighboring planets and develop theories concerning their history, formation, and habitability, among other things. Given just how much each picture of Mars continues to amaze us, it should be interesting to see what future images might uncover as rovers and spacecraft alike explore its environment. After all, we still have a lot to learn before we send some of the first human visitors there. Source: ESA

The red planet in our solar system, Mars, is a lot like Earth in many ways, but the reason that it doesn’t appear to have any forms of life on its surface like Earth does may lie in the way that the planet has been treated by the Sun over the course of the solar system’s existence. NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission has revealed a lot about the red planet. Once wet and potentially habitable, like Earth is today, Mars is now a cold and dry place. The idea is that the Sun’s solar activity is what has actually made it this way. As we know, Mars doesn’t have a very effective magnetic field like the Earth does, and as a result, the planet is not well protected against solar radiation like we are. The increased solar activity that Mars has had over the years has been “stripping away” the planet’s atmosphere over time. Although NASA did just announce evidence of “flowing water” on Mars, it’s not the same type of flowing water you’d find here on Earth. Instead, it’s mixed with sediments and other surface materials to create an oozy substance that hardly flows much at all. The absence of the type of water we know and take for granted on Earth is because of the effects of evaporation. "Mars appears to have had a thick atmosphere warm enough to support liquid water which is a key ingredient and medium for life as we currently know it," said John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator for the NASA Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "Understanding what happened to the Mars atmosphere will inform our knowledge of the dynamics and evolution of any planetary atmosphere. Learning what can cause changes to a planet's environment from one that could host microbes at the surface to one that doesn't is important to know, and is a key question that is being addressed in NASA's journey to Mars." Instruments aboard MAVEN have been keeping track of the Martian atmosphere, and what it has found is that solar activity, such as solar winds, actually strips away the gasses within the Martian atmosphere over time and reduces its effectiveness at protecting the planet from the Sun and its harmful UV rays and solar radiation. Although the amount of gasses stripped away is insignificant at a given point in time, approximately 100 grams, over the course of time the amount adds up; especially since 100 grams of atmospheric gasses are stripped from Mars every second. Over the course of millions of years, you can see why this is a problem. "Solar-wind erosion is an important mechanism for atmospheric loss, and was important enough to account for significant change in the Martian climate," said Joe Grebowsky, MAVEN project scientist from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "MAVEN also is studying other loss processes -- such as loss due to impact of ions or escape of hydrogen atoms -- and these will only increase the importance of atmospheric escape." Below, you can see a computer-generated visual of how solar storms affect the Martian atmosphere: So in short, Mars may have very well been a perfectly habitable planet in the distant past, much like Earth, but solar activity has been bombarding the planet for so long that it’s no longer able to sustain the necessary ingredients for life. Scientists are still on the search to this day for any evidence of life on Mars, whether current or past. Source: NASA

Mars has two known moons: Deimos and Phobos, but how the red planet received these moons is a mystery to scientists. They’re not nice and round like the Earth’s Moon is; instead, they’re completely different in size and shape from one another. Because of this, astronomers have long thought that they might have once been asteroids that were caught up in Mars’ gravity, but a new theory has surfaced because the asteroid theory doesn’t quite add up. If it were an asteroid, chances are it wouldn’t have such a defined circular orbit, but rather an ovular one. The new theory, which was first revealed at the 47th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, is that the moons of Mars may actually be remnants from a collision that occurred on the red planet. After the collision, material would have been spewed into space, surrounding the red planet. This would have included several other moon-like satellites. Dust disks would have formed, and gravity would have slowly clumped that material together to form what we know today as Deimos and Phobos. “The idea is that Phobos and Deimos are the only two survivors of a once much larger population of satellites,” said Julian Salmon of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado to NewScientist. An object is estimated to have been the size of roughly Pluto in order to spew enough material into space to form the moons we know today. It would have had about 3% of the mass Mars did, and would have sent almost 1/1000th of Mars’ planetary material into orbit. Computer models were used to generate the possible collision that would have formed these moons, and it also allowed scientists to study other strange characteristics about the red planet, such as its fast rotation and stark differences in elevation. “It makes sense to think about a big impact for Mars,” Salmon said. Combined with the findings of atomic oxygen and flowing water on Mars, researchers are currently making strides in understanding the red planet and how it may have formed and became what it is today; a desolate wasteland. Source: NewScientist

It seems like only science fiction has ever been able to put people on a planet to live in a controlled environment for extended periods of time, but scientists and astronomers really want to accomplish this in real life too, for say, one year or so. With this desire come challenges; Mars isn't exactly very human-friendly, and as a result, humans would have to live in a pressurized man-man enclosure and wouldn't be able to leave their space suits when leaving the enclosure to explore. Mars lacks a decent supply of oxygen, and instead, the atmosphere is almost 96% carbon dioxide. The atmospheric conditions also make it difficult to protect potential astronauts from radiation, and effects from distant light without an atmosphere to protect them has been known to cause eye problems for astronauts. Among other things, a body tuned to Earth's gravity can experience odd side-effects in a different gravitational environment, such as problems with sleep, blood pressure, muscles, and more. Mars isn't overly distant from Earth, but it does take a while to get there. Because Mars is not as close to the Earth as the Moon or the International Space Station are, it can take up to nine months to get an astronaut to Mars. Then, adding in the time they'd spend staying there, and the time to get back, we're looking at close to two years or more away from home. If astronauts were to go to Mars, they'd need a food supply that would last them, and they would have to rely on constant food supply refreshes, as well as an oxygen system, which would be difficult to achieve because of the distance. Supplying the International Space Station, for example, is much easier because it orbits the Earth and is significantly closer than Mars is. Will it happen? - Maybe some day, but not with current technology.

Did you ever dream of being an astronaut as a kid? Perhaps you had visions of yourself in a rocket ship or walking on the moon or even being the first to touch down on Mars! It's great to have dreams, but like all things, you should know what you're getting into before you commit. Being in space is physically challenging on your body and emotionally challenging on your mind; because of that many studies have been done on astronauts to see how space missions can affect them. If you go up in space you can expect to experience aging (the telomeres on your DNA actually shorten at a faster rate in space) and radiation from galactic cosmic rays that can change the atomic structure of your body. In space the average amount of radiation that you'd be exposed to in 6 months is 20-40 times higher than the amount that you'd be exposed to in a year on Earth. You would likely also experience bloating due to the fluids in your body being distributed differently without gravity, 1-2% of bone density loss every month, and even a loss of your sense of taste. Still think it's all worth it? To learn more, watch the video!

Jezero Crater is a site on the Martian surface where NASA expects the upcoming Mars 2020 rover to land and begin its initial exploration. This site is of particular importance to NASA because it’s believed to have hosted a deep body of water as large as Lake Tahoe just before the planet’s climate shifted and all surface water vanished from sight. Given what we know about lakes here on Earth, ex-lakes are excellent places to go looking for signs of past and present life, even on other planets. Evidence of life can often be preserved in the dirt, mud, and sand buried beneath the former lakebed. Mars 2020 will take full advantage of this idea, collecting sediment samples from Jezero Crater to discern the likelihood of past life on Mars. Afterward, the rover will explore the former shoreline and crater rim, attempting to collect more samples for scientific study. It should be interesting to see what Mars 2020 uncovers when it reaches Mars.

Mount Everest, which sports a height of approximately 29,000 feet, is the tallest mountain on Earth. But if you were to venture to Mars, you’d find several mountains that make Mount Everest look small. Olympus Mons, for example, measures nearly 69,000 feet tall. You might be wondering how Mars developed such tall mountains, but there’s a very simple answer. Mars was volcanically active during its early days, but the planet doesn’t have active tectonic plates as the Earth does. That said, these volcanoes spewed molten material repeatedly, and the material merely stacked higher over time. Mars’ smaller gravitational influence also played a role. With less restrictive force preventing upward material buildup, mountains could reach greater heights than they could here on Earth. Mars isn’t as volcanically active today as it once was, but NASA’s InSight mission is on its way to the red planet as of this writing to learn more about its internal processes. If we’re lucky, the mission could validate this idea.

When NASA sends its Mars 2020 rover to the red planet in just a few more years, it'll utilize a parachute to land on the Martian surface safely. NASA recently tested the very same supersonic parachute it will use on the Mars 2020 mission when the time comes. This high-definition video footage outlines how the Mars 2020 supersonic parachute system works from the beginning to the end. After sending the parachute system into a high altitude, similar to where the Mars 2020 payload would be when entering the Martian atmosphere, the parachute deploys. The nylon and Kevlar-reinforced parachute system blasts out of the back of the payload at more than 100 miles per hour before expanding at 1.8x the speed of sound. By the time full inflation occurs, the parachute generates more than 35,000 pounds of drag force to slow the falling payload as it enters the atmosphere. The footage will give engineers a way to look for potential flaws in the system, and improve them as necessary. As NASA notes, this is just one of several tests meant to ensure the proper operation of the Mars 2020 mission.

Mars is one of the closest and potentially-habitable planets to Earth in our Solar System, and that's why it has remained the center of attention for more than two decades. Over this span of time, we have sent rover after rover to the red planet to observe its chemical properties and to search for any signs of life. While we've come up empty in search of the latter, hopes are high that we might still find something beneath the surface, where life would be shielded from ultraviolet rays that penetrate Mars' thin atmosphere. In addition to rovers, we've also sent numerous landers and orbiters to Mars to help us map the surface, a process that helps us better prepare for better landing sites for future rovers, like the Mars 2020 mission. Soon, we will attempt to send the first humans to Mars to explore the planet with our own eyes, something that has never been accomplished before. It will be just like landing on the Moon for the first time, only much bigger.

On February 18, 2021, Mars 2020 landed at Jezero Crater on Mars. The mission contained a rover named Perseverance and a helicopter named Ingenuity. The main objectives of the Perseverance rover are to search for signs of ancient microbial life and to study the planet’s geology and past climate. This mission is part of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which also includes the Artemis missions to the Moon; these missions will pave the way for future human exploration of the Red Planet, Mars. Perseverance is the first mission to Mars to collect and cache Martian samples. Some of the samples will include rock and regolith – broken rock and soil. Scientists at NASA and the European Space Agency are working together to plan, design, and build a future mission that would allow these samples to be returned to Earth for in-depth analysis. This annotated image, captured by NASA's Perseverance rover, shows the location of the 10 sample tubes in the depot. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS Perseverance recently completed assembly of a sample depot and snapped a portrait of it. The depot serves as a backup collection of samples that could be recovered in the future by the Mars Sample Return campaign. The primary sample tubes reside within the belly of Perseverance itself. These samples, along with samples that will be retrieved in the future, would be passed to a Sample Retriever Lander as part of the campaign. If Perseverance could not deliver the tubes directly to the lander, samples could be retrieved from the depot instead. The rover began building the depot on December 21, 2022 at “Three Forks” in Jezero Crater. The depot contains 10 backup sample tubes. The portrait was actually a panorama created by stitching together 368 images taken by the rover. The panorama captures more than a month’s careful placement and mapping of the tubes. The images were obtained using the Mastcam-Z camera on January 31, 2023. The color of the image has been adjusted to accurately represent how the Martian surface would appear to the human eye. What exactly do the samples contain? One of the tubes contains a sample of Mars’ atmosphere. One of the samples serves as a control; it is called a “witness” tube. This “witness” tube would show scientists back on Earth whether any of the samples were contaminated by materials of Earthly origin during the collection process. The other eight tubes are filled with samples of rock and regolith from different locations that Perseverance has visited. For more information about Perseverance and the mission, please visit the following website: https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/ Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory

NASA has officially retired the InSight Mars Lander Mission after more than four years of service, and although this is sad, the science that has been done and will be done with the data it has collected is cause for celebration. The official retirement comes after two consecutive failed attempts to make contact with the lander. Mission controllers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have concluded that the solar-powered batteries that provide the energy to operate the lander have run out of juice. On December 19, 2022, InSight tweeted the above photo along with the following message: “My power’s really low, so this may be the last image I can send. Don’t worry about me though: my time here has been both productive and serene. If I can keep talking to my mission team, I will – but I’ll be signing off here soon. Thanks for staying with me.” InSight – Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy, and Heat Transport – launched on May 5, 2018. After a 6-month long journey, it landed on the surface of Mars on November 26, 2018. InSight’s science goals – and hence its instruments – were very different from all previous Mars landers and rovers: it was the first mission whose task was to explore Mars’ deep interior. Data obtained by instruments on the lander have uncovered secrets about Mars’ internal structure and layers, its liquid core, remnants of its mostly extinct magnetic field, weather on the surface of Mars, and lots of marsquake activity. Here are some recent articles featuring results obtained from InSight data: Martian Core Identified Through Planetary Scan Two Largest Marsquakes Recorded to Date FTW Magma Is Still Shaping The Surface of Mars What is Causing the Red Planet to Shake? Mysteries of Martian Climate Revealed: Could They Solve Problems on Earth? The main scientific instrument aboard InSight was a highly sensitive seismometer, which detected over 1,300 marsquakes. This marks the first time that seismology was the main focus of a mission beyond Earth since the Apollo astronauts brought seismometers to the Moon. This instrument was the last scientific instrument that remained powered on till the end of its mission. Since InSight’s landing, its solar panels – which it relied on for power – had been continuously showered in dust and dirt, decreasing their efficiency and the amount of power they could produce. As a result, NASA had to find creative ways to remove the dust, but in the end it just wasn’t enough. The situation had deteriorated to the point where NASA turned off all InSight’s scientific instruments except its seismometer this past summer so that the lander could focus on its primary mission objective for as long as possible. And as expected, its mission has finally come to an end. For more information about the mission, visit www.nasa.gov/insight. Source: Live Science, NASA, NASA

In a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences journal, Christopher H. House of the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute at The Pennsylvania State University and collaborators present evidence of unusual carbon signatures detected on the surface of Mars by NASA’s Curiosity rover. Since landing on Mars in August 2012, NASA’s Curiosity rover has been exploring Gale Crater and drilling into the surface to recover samples of sedimentary layers of rock throughout the area. To analyze the carbon abundance on surface of Mars, the obtained samples of rock are heated to extreme temperatures to turn the solid rock into gas. Then, spectroscopic analysis of the gas can be done to allow scientists to understand the composition of the sampled rock. The samples uncovered a vast range of various carbon isotopes, specifically carbon 12 and carbon 13. The isotopes of a specific element are atoms that have different masses due to possessing a different, distinct number of neutrons. Isotopic abundances can help to uncover important clues in the chemical and biological evolution of planets. Carbon is an extremely important element since it is crucial to all life on Earth. Thus, measuring the abundances of carbon isotopes can tell us which chemical processes were most prevalent in the environment being studied. Some of the samples obtained by Curiosity were greatly depleted in carbon 13, while other samples were enriched in carbon 13. House says that the amount of these isotopes in our solar system is set at its formation, but because carbon 12 reacts more quickly than carbon 13, the relative abundances of each in rock samples can reveal the history of the carbon cycle on Mars. The hypotheses developed by the team for the origin of these carbon signatures must be based on the planet that we understand the best -- the Earth. The researchers warn that the geologic history and current conditions on Earth and Mars are so vastly different that caution must be used when drawing these conclusions. The team of scientists offer several possible explanations for the unusual carbon signatures: the carbon could have been deposited from a rare event that occurred a couple hundred million years ago, in which the solar system passed through a giant molecular cloud rich in carbon dust, ultraviolet light interacted with the carbon dioxide gas in the Martian atmosphere, which produced new organic compounds which were deposited on the surface, or Mars may have had large plumes of methane that were being released from below its surface, then the methane could either be consumed by microbes on its surface or could react with ultraviolet light and be deposited directly on the surface. Does this mean there was life on Mars? Unfortunately, probably not. No definitive conclusions can be made as to the origin of the carbon signatures on Mars until further evidence about the geologic history of Mars can be obtained. Either way, scientists insist that there is clear evidence that on ancient Mars there existed a unique carbon cycle unlike anything that exists on Earth today. Sources: The Pennsylvania State University, Phys.org

NASA has started testing its new Mars lander, which is scheduled to leave for the red planet in March of 2016. It's big, about the size of a car, and a-roving it will not go. It will stay where it lands because it has a very specific purpose. In terms of what we know about Mars, we have, quite literally, just scratched the surface, leaving us guessing about some very fundamental questions about the red planet. What is Mars' interior structure? What is the nature of the core? Does Mars have a crust with liquid magma beneath it? And even more fundamentally, how is Mars geologically like Earth and different? The new lander called InSight will drill into the martian surface in an attempt to fill in some of these crucial gaps in our knowledge.If you've been following stories about NASA over the past few years, you may have noticed that almost every name they give to one of their missions or vehicles stands for something, so, here it is for InSight: Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport. Geodesy? A bit of shoehornery there, NASA? Well, in any case, InSight will, in fact, be doing some very important science. Here's the thing: The only planet that we're really drilled into so far is the Earth. So when InSight begins drilling into Mars and sending back data, in addition to providing crucial information about Mars, it will also, for the first time in history, give us something to compare the Earth to.The current round of tests will put InSight through its paces to ensure that it can withstand the trip to Mars, the landing there, and the harsh conditions the lander will face on the martian surface, all while remaining operational. NASA engineers want to make sure that any faults with the craft are identified and fixed while it's still here on Earth. If anything goes wrong with InSight once it's on its way, the only possibility of a repair man coming by will be many years in the future, when the first manned missions arrive on Mars, in the the 2030's, or if either of the two private ventures to colonize Mars about ten years earlier actually happen.This environmental testing on InSight will take place at Lockheed Martin's Space Systems facility near Denver. There InSight will be subjected to the sorts of extreme temperatures and vacuum conditions the lander will be exposed to during its journey through interplanetary space. Once InSight passes this set of tests, it will be subjected to several other batteries of them over the next seven months, including vibrations to simulate launch conditions, and checking for electronic interference between different parts of the spacecraft. The final set of tests will include a second thermal vacuum test to simulate the conditions the spacecraft will be exposed to on the Martian surface."It's great to see the spacecraft put together in its launch configuration," says Tom Hoffman, InSight Project Manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "Many teams from across the globe have worked long hours to get their elements of the system delivered for these tests. There still remains much work to do before we are ready for launch, but it is fantastic to get to this critical milestone."(Source: phys.org)

NASA’s plans to send a space vehicle to Mars for additional exploration of the red planet’s geology will likely be postponed until 2018 after it was discovered that an instrument aboard the vehicle, a leaky seismometer that needs to be sealed off from the outside world to survive on the harsh conditions of the red planet, would be unable to function as expected. Without a proper vacuum-packed seal from the outside world, readings would be inaccurate and it would be a waste of an extremely expensive trip to visit Mars. Scientists have reportedly been aware of the leak since August and have continually tried to repair it with no success, and as a result, have given up trying to repair the faulty unit. NASA is picking 2018 now because that’s the next time that Earth and Mars will be tangoing together close enough in our solar system for a launch to be practical and the seismic measurement device should be ready to go by then. Originally, the plan was to launch some time in the middle of next year. It will also take time for the leaky seismometer, which was made by the French Space Agency (CNES), to be properly repaired and/or replaced for the mission, which means that meeting next year’s deadline would be essentially out of grasp. "A decision on a path forward will be made in the coming months, but one thing is clear: NASA remains fully committed to the scientific discovery and exploration of Mars," NASA's John Grunsfeld said in a statement. The vehicle’s intention is to measure specific properties of the red planet that may one day help astronauts on their quest to live there, as NASA would one day like to have accomplished. Such things that the vehicle would monitor include seismic activity, temperature, and the way the planet orbits the Sun. The New York Times reports that the spacecraft, which was intended to take this vehicle to Mars next year, will likely be carted back into storage so that it’s ready when the mission is a go. Source: New York Times

NASA has been examining the lands of Mars for years in hopes of uncovering whether or not any form of life exists on the neighboring planet. Although many extraordinary things have been found that could point to the possibility of life, a new finding is leaving scientists with yet another glimmer of hope that they could finally discover the truth. For the first time, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has discovered deposits of glass on the red planet's surface. The glass was found inside of and around the impact craters that were created from impacts of meteorites. In the image below, the green portions show glass scattered around a meteorite strike site: So why would glass be an indication of life? As NASA explains in a public statement, the glass could possibly be preserving a moment in time inside, much like time capsule. It is possible that the glass samples could contain answers inside that could tell scientists whether or not life existed in the location of the meteorite strike at the moment of impact. "If you had an impact that dug in and sampled that subsurface environment, it's possible that some of it might be preserved in a glassy component," Jack Mustard, a researcher, said. "That makes this a pretty compelling place to go look around, and possibly return a sample." NASA explains that glass has been known to preserve signs of life here on Earth, which leads them to assume that similar scenarios could be present in the glass samples on Mars. Scientists now have a new strategy to try in looking for life on Mars. It was not previously known that glass existed on Mars, and scientists are now armed with new information that could finally shed some light on the answers we've been looking for. The hard part now is deciding just what samples to take and what samples to leave be. After all, it's a coin toss in terms of picking up a lucky piece of glass, or just a bunch of duds. Source: NASA

How much water on ancient Mars fell into aquifers to refill groundwater? This is what a recent study published in Icarus hopes to address as a team of international researchers led by The University of Texas at Austin (UTA) used computer models to calculate groundwater recharge rates in the southern highlands of ancient Mars. This study holds the potential to help scientists better understand the amount of water that potentially existed on ancient Mars and what this could mean for finding ancient life on the Red Planet. For the study, the researchers used a combination of previously used and new computer modeling techniques to estimate how much groundwater recharge occurred in the Martian southern highlands, since most of the liquid water that existed on Mars billions of years ago resided in a vast ocean in the northern lowlands. In the end, the researchers found the aquifers in the southern highlands on Mars experienced an average groundwater recharge of only 0.03 millimeters (0.001 inches) per year. For context, the Trinity and Edwards-Trinity Plateau aquifers that are responsible for providing water for the city of San Antonio range between 2.5 to 50 millimeters (0.1 inches to 2 inches) per year, or between 80 and 1600 times that of the Martian aquifers. “The fact that the groundwater isn’t as big of a process could mean that other things are,” said Eric Hiatt, who is a PhD student in the Jackson School of Geosciences at UTA and lead author of the study. “It might magnify the importance of runoff, or it could mean that it just didn’t rain as much on Mars. But it’s just fundamentally different from how we think about [water] on Earth.” Along with learning more about ancient Mars, this research holds the potential to have associations with future human exploration of Mars, as knowing where groundwater is potentially located could help future astronauts have a viable source of water that can also be used for fuel, as well. What new discoveries will researchers make about ancient waterflow on Mars in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science! As always, keep doing science & keep looking up! Sources: Icarus, EurekAlert!, Texas Geosciences Featured Image: NASA/GSFC

While experts agree that most life on Earth would not be able to survive on Mars, NASA researchers have previously suggested that some types of microbes, like black mold fungus, may be an exception. Now, a group of researchers from multiple countries and institutions have reported finding signs of mushroom life on Mars from pictures taken by various Mars missions. The researchers’ claims are based on over 40 images taken by NASA’s Opportunity and Curiosity rovers, alongside the agency’s HiRISE high-resolution camera attached to the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The photos, they say, show sequential growth of what seems to be some sort of Martian fungus in the soil. Even after being ‘obliterated’ by the rover wheels, they reportedly observed spherical fungus-like specimens, alongside some with stalks, 'growing back' on top of the rovers' old tracks. They also noted that black fungi-bacteria-like specimens even appeared on top of the rovers. The researchers say that the possibility of fungus on the red planet may explain why thousands of black arctic araneiforms, or spider-like formations, grow up to 300 meters every Spring on the planet and then disappear by Winter. They say the patches may represent colonies of black fungi, lichens, algae, mould, methanogens and sulfur-reducing species. While this paper has been met with much interest by the media, it has been met with scepticism by experts. In particular, they say the research team used inaccurate methodology, and that spotting similarities in photographs can not be taken as evidence of life on Mars. Zoey Yang, the managing editor of Advances in Microbiology, the journal to which the paper was submitted, said the paper had undergone double-blinded peer review after submission. She added that, before publication, the paper underwent four revisions as suggested by four reviews from four different reviewers. Nevertheless, some completely negate the study's results. Jonathan Clarke, a geologist who, although not involved in the research, studies Mars and Mars analogs in extreme environments on Earth that resemble Mars, said that the fungal explanation made no sense. “The conditions on Mars are so extreme that you’re not going to see fungi or any kind of life growing at that sort of speed under conditions like coldness and low air pressure," says Clarke. "Life can barely survive, let alone thrive.” Clarke went on to say that the spheres described in the paper are more likely to have been made out of leftover hematite, a red iron material, following erosion of surrounding rock. He added that Martian soil contains very little organic matter for fungi to feed on and grow. Despite the initial claims made in the paper, the researchers noted within it that ‘similarities in morphology are not proof of life’. They further wrote that they ‘cannot completely rule out minerals, weathering, and unknown geological forces that are unique to Mars and unknown and alien to Earth.' Nevertheless, they still say that the growth, movement and alterations in location and shape of the specimens seen, as well as their morphology, 'strongly support the hypothesis there is life on Mars'. Sources: Interesting Engineering, SCMP, Popular Mechanics, Advances in Microbiology

We’ve been sending rovers to Mars for years to find out whether or not the red planet has the means to support life, and soon, Mars 2020 rover will continue where older rover missions have left off. Image Credit: Pixabay While we haven’t found traces of life on Mars yet, scientists are anxious about any opportunities to learn of the presence of extraterrestrial bacteria, or other more advanced life forms that we’ve never seen before. It seems like it's possible on paper, but Scottish researchers recently published a study in the journal Scientific Reports that elaborates on how the Martian environment could be harsher for organic life than we originally realized, which has negative implications. Related: What happened to Mars' atmosphere? The study took a closer look at the presence of perchlorates known to exist on Mars and studied the effects ultraviolet radiation had on them. They found that the perchlorates underwent a chemical reaction when exposed to ultraviolet light that was detrimental to organic matter, namely a specific bacterial test subject known as Bacillus subtilis. The presence of iron oxides and hydrogen peroxide on Mars' dry and lifeless surface may also exacerbate the cell destruction process in organic matter. While the study did only focus on just one bacteria, it illustrates how potentially unforgiving the Martian environment could be towards organic life forms. On the other hand, since it only focused on one bacterial species, it was a narrow study that didn't look at the bigger picture and needs expansion. “Life can survive very extreme environments,” says lead study author Jennifer Wadsworth “The bacterial model we tested wasn’t an extremophile so it’s not out of the question that hardier life forms would find a way to survive.” Related: Here's what a trip to Mars would be like Since Mars lacks an ozone layer, ultraviolet radiation easily reaches the surface of the planet. This means ground-based perchlorates are exposed to ultraviolet rays day in and day out. That said, while the surface of Mars is potentially inhabitable for some species, the sub-surface could have an entirely different set of rules. Ultraviolet radiation can't reach the sub-surface as easily, so this could be the most likely hiding place for Martian life. “Although the surface of Mars may be uninhabitable, there’s a whole potential subsurface habitat to be explored,” Wadsworth continued. “If that’s the case we may have to dig at least a few meters into the ground to ensure the levels of radiation would be relatively low. At those depths, it’s possible Martian life may survive.” Any future human visitors that might find their way to Mars in coming years will be forced to live inside of habitation modules to protect them from from the Martian elements. Space suits may serve as mobile protection against said elements during missions where leaving the habitation module is required. This will be challenge for mankind, but if history repeats itself, we'll find a way. Source: Popular Science

The search for life in our Solar System is continuous, and still, to no avail, but researchers aren’t giving up yet. Mars is one of the closest planets to Earth that we can get to the easiest, and it’s one of the hotspots for possible life because it’s inside the Sun’s habitable zone. Because we have yet to check and see what’s hidden under all of Mars’ rocks, we don’t know for sure if there is or was at some point any kind of forms of life on Mars. Nevertheless, the probing continues. On the other hand, a new lead from Arizona State University students suggests that a specific point on Mars near the large Gusev Crater shares a lot of characteristics with a hot spring that can be found in El Tatio, Chile here on Earth. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona Appearing in the journal Nature Communications, the researchers explain that Mars too has a hot spring-like structure that may have once supported life in the past. It’s strikingly similar to the aforementioned place on Earth, so scientists immediately traveled to Chile to learn more about the region. Finger-shaped silica deposits that get produced in these kinds of regions from the natural forces of both biological and non-biological activity were the main source of interest in this study. These deposits can be found around hot springs all around the world, including Yellowstone National Park. They were found at the hot spring location of interest on Mars by the Spirit rover almost a decade ago, but they’ve also apparently been found at the El Tatio, Chile hot spring. This suggests the ones on Mars might have been formed in similar ways to those here on Earth, seemingly suggesting that life may have played a role. The hot springs at El Tatio are a better fit for Martian conditions than Yellowstone is because of the sheer elevation, which scientists estimate to be about 14,000 feet above sea level. At this height, temperature and ultraviolet light exposure are significantly different than anywhere else in the world, and makes the conditions a lot more Mars-like. When life leaves something behind, this is known as a biosignature. It’s something scientists can use to determine that life was there previously, even if it’s not there currently. These silica deposits just might have been the byproduct of microbial life on Mars at some point in time. It’s a gutsy assumption, considering no rover has yet discovered any traces of life on the red planet to date, including any kind of fossils, but it’s something to go by, which is better than nothing. The idea that there may be traces of life in this region on the red planet also suggests a possible new landing zone for the upcoming Mars 2020 rover. Since there’s a good chance we might find something unusual here, putting the rover in this spot to study might yield impressive results. Still, there’s no guarantee that the rover will be placed in the Gusey Crater region, and there’s still no guarantee that we’ll find anything worthwhile there even if we did. It’s a dicey move, but eventually the Mars 2020 rover will have to land somewhere, and scientists are convinced that this is a good place to start a new generation of life searches on the red planet before humans inevitably get sent there to settle permanently. Source: Arizona State University

Many millions of years ago, an asteroid hit the planet Mars which created a crater and ejected a lot of its material into space. Some of this material fell to Earth and, over many years, these have been collected by professionals across the world. The ejected materials burn when passing through Earth’s atmosphere and are termed meteorites. At present, there are about 300 meteorites that came from different areas of Mars over time. Studies of these Martian meteorites could potentially reveal a lot of important information about the formation of this planet. One very famous meteorite which came from Mars, and was found in the Sahara Desert, is called Northwest Africa (NWA) 7034 or more commonly “Black Beauty”. These meteorites act as excellent resources for us earthlings who want to know whether Mars was once like Earth or not. Their composition varies greatly depending upon which part of Mars they come from, but they still can be differentiated from a normal rock found here on Earth. All this is done by studying the chemical composition of these meteorites. If we knew where each meteorite came from, we can tell exactly how Mars was formed. Thanks to the supercomputing facility at Pawsey Supercomputing Research Center in Perth, Australia as well as machine learning techniques, we now know that there are about 90 million craters on Mars. One more thing that came out of this study was that most of these craters were formed from the re-impact of material ejected from original asteroid-impacted craters. This led to the discovery that there are only 19 large craters which could have ejected material into space during an impact. Then each of these craters were studied for their age, composition, and magnetic properties and were matched with this “black beauty”. A 10 km crater located in the Terra Cimmeria-Sirenum province, in the southern hemisphere of Mars was a perfect match for this meteorite. This work is an example of a big progress in planetary science, paving a way for more studies of all asteroids. This extraordinary work was published in Nature Communications in July 2022. Source: Nature Communications, Phys.org

If you went to Mars and took a closer look at some of the planet’s steepest slopes, then you would probably come across surface features known as recurrent slope lineae (or RSL for short). Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UA/USGS Planetary scientists have long thought that these streaks came from water flowing beneath the Martian surface, but a new study published in the journal Nature Geoscience this week implies that the red planet’s seemingly-endless shifting sands cause them instead. Scientists took particular note of how these streaks mostly appear near some of the steepest slopes on Mars, like those exceeding an incline of 27 degrees. While it seems like an insignificant coincidence at first glance, it just might speak volumes about how they came to be. As it turns out, Mars is drier than we think. Although a small water presence beneath Mars’ surface could have something to do with their formation, scientists think it’s more likely that the slopes are just steep enough to promote downhill-tumbling sand granules. Related: MRO image offers potential clues regarding the mechanisms behind sand formation on Mars "We've thought of RSL as possible liquid water flows, but the slopes are more like what we expect for dry sand," noted Colin Dundas of the U.S. Geological Survey's Astrogeology Science Center. "This new understanding of RSL supports other evidence that shows that Mars today is very dry." The flowing sand granule idea fits the bill for Mars better than flowing water because of what we know about the planet’s habitability conditions. With its thin atmosphere and lack of a magnetic field, Mars' environment is probably too hostile to support enough subsurface flowing water to generate these types of patterns. On the other hand, these RSLs seem to change frequently with the seasons, so it’s possible that salts residing in the Martian sands absorb near-negligible amounts of atmospheric moisture that help facilitate these formations. "Full understanding of RSL is likely to depend upon on-site investigation of these features," said Rich Zurek, an MRO project scientist. Related: NASA is using simulated Martian soil to experiment with plant growth If one thing’s to be sure, it’s that Mars’ RSLs are unlike anything else in the solar system; we can’t even begin to compare similar formations on Earth to those on the red planet because of the vast differences in each planet's makeup and environmental features. Investigating the mechanisms that cause RSLs to form on Mars might just have to become one of the primary tasks of the first Martian visitors. Source: Phys.org

When NASA’s InSight lander arrives at Mars, it will land near the planet’s equator at Elysium Planitia. This location is flat, which is ideal for a lander-type spacecraft like InSight, and it’s located in the perfect spot where InSight can receive tons of sunlight to power its scientific instruments. InSight isn’t just any other lander mission on Mars; it’s entirely different from every rover put on Mars previously. InSight will study Mars’ internal processes, including planetary temperature, tectonics, and orbital wobble. To help uncover the details surrounding these mysteries, InSight will deploy an extraordinary drill that will probe deep beneath Mars’ sandy surface. Citing NASA, this drill will dig 16 feet below Mars’ surface, which is nearly the same length as an ordinary sedan. Comparatively, NASA’s beloved Curiosity rover can only dig about one-half inch below the surface. As it digs, the drill will send bursts of heat and subtle vibrations through the surrounding soil to discern its chemical makeup. InSight is sure to discover exciting data as it penetrates deeper into Mars than any other spacecraft before it. Fortunately, we’re nearing the spacecraft’s official landing, so it won’t be long now until NASA gets the opportunity to learn more about our red planetary neighbor than ever before.

NASA has sent a lot of spacecraft to Mars to explore the red planet for clues about its formation and suitability for life, but the upcoming Mars 2020 rover promises to be more advanced than any other rover sent to Mars before it. While it might look a lot like NASA’s Curiosity rover at first glance, Mars 2020 is far from a twin. Mars 2020 is set to come equipped with powerful new analytical equipment, such as a sample collection platform that will snag and jar samples of the Martian surface and stow them away for recovery and analysis in the future. Mars 2020 will also sport dual computers, one that can track the rover’s movements and another that can focus on scientific operations. This dual-computer setup will enable Mars 2020 to move into more challenging terrains and navigate tricky landscapes more efficiently without compromising processing bandwidth. For regions that are too tricky for the rover to navigate, Mars 2020 will deploy a small, softball-sized helicopter to explore captivating terrains from the sky. It will be solar-powered and remote-controlled, enabling it to move short distances from the rover and return after it has finished its duty. Given the idea that Mars may have been a lot like Earth in its early history, planetary scientists are excited to get this show on the road. The rover promises to solve many mysteries about our planetary neighbor, bringing us one step closer to understanding whether the planet ever supported life and learning more about the formation of our solar system.

SpaceX continues to express its interest in Mars. The commercial space company has been very vocal about sending mankind to Mars within the next few decades, but now the company seems confident that it will land an unmanned spacecraft on the Martian surface by 2018 – just two years from now. .twitter-tweet{margin:0 auto;} Planning to send Dragon to Mars as soon as 2018. Red Dragons will inform overall Mars architecture, details to come pic.twitter.com/u4nbVUNCpA — SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 27, 2016 What spacecraft would they would be sending? – None other than their own Dragon 2 spacecraft, of course. It’s the spacecraft that has been getting all the attention because it lands with rockets, similarly to the Falcon 9 rockets SpaceX makes, rather than parachutes. With the eight small rockets on the sides of the Dragon 2 spacecraft, the capsule is said to have the landing accuracy of a helicopter. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk refers to the landing on Mars as the “Red Dragon Mars” mission, and says on Twitter that the landing would mark the first testing point for the Dragon 2 spacecraft. In that very same Tweet, Musk notes that Dragon 2 is designed to be landed anywhere in our solar system. But wouldn't recommend transporting astronauts beyond Earth-moon region. Wouldn't be fun for longer journeys. Internal volume ~size of SUV. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 27, 2016 Because the test mission would be unmanned, it would likely have next to no significance apart from being a milestone and a scientific experiment. It would allow SpaceX to test its spacecraft in a real-world scenario, rather than in testing scenarios, and see to it that the spacecraft can do what it’s made to do before people actually ride in it. The size of an SUV, Musk notes that the Dragon 2 is not a roomy spacecraft, and that the distance for humans would best be kept within the Earth/Moon region since there’s not really enough room for long-term space travel. In a statement released by NASA yesterday, the United States space agency proposes that it would support the company’s plans of sending an unmanned Dragon 2 spacecraft to Mars for testing purposes by providing technical support. It’s worth noting that both NASA and SpaceX share a mutual interest in some day having astronauts living on the Martian surface, so this comes off as little of a surprise. Source: SpaceX, NASA

Whenever there’s an Earthquake on Earth, the rocks that make up the ground grind against one another through the harsh vibrations. This seismic process has been documented to create vast amounts of hydrogen that then get trapped inside of the rocks. In a study published in Astrobiology, scientists sampled rocks from the Outer Hebrides, off of the coast of Scotland, where active fault lines often generate earthquakes and allow the rocks to rub against one another, forming molecular hydrogen in the process. Image Credit: University of Aberdeen It was found that the amounts of hydrogen may be plentiful enough to support certain kinds of bacterial life just below the surface of the planet. Those same scientists believe that similar activity probably occurs on Mars when Marsquakes happen, making for a potentially habitable environment for certain forms of microbes, even if it was only for a short period of time. “Previous work has suggested that hydrogen is produced during earthquakes when rocks fracture and grind together. Our measurements suggest that enough hydrogen is produced to support the growth of microorganisms around active faults,” said study lead author and Yale geologist Sean McMahon. Although Marsquakes aren’t particularly common, they still occur from time to time. No current rovers on Mars are sampling seismic regions of the red planet to test for the existence of hydrogen, so the theory goes very much untested at this point in time. “Mars is not very seismically active, but our work shows that ‘Marsquakes’ could produce enough hydrogen to support small populations of microorganisms, at least for short periods of time,” McMahon continued. “This is just one part of the emerging picture of the habitability of the Martian subsurface, where other sources of energy for life may also be available. The best way to find evidence of life on Mars may be to examine rocks and minerals that formed deep underground around faults and fractures, which were later brought to the surface by erosion.” Although no rovers are sampling seismic rocks for hydrogen on Mars right now, that could all change in the future. NASA’s upcoming InSight mission, scheduled to initiate in 2018, might provide more clues about whether or not seismic activity on Mars produces hydrogen in large quantities like it does here on Earth. If it turns out seismic activity on Mars produces hydrogen like it does here on Earth, this could be a game-changer in our understanding of life on other planets. Source: YaleNews, Phys.org

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you should know by now that NASA’s planning to send another rover to the Martian surface to investigate the planet’s past and potential habitability. Dubbed the Mars 2020 rover, this new rover will sport HD cameras and gadgets and gizmos for sampling the world around it. But before a rover of this caliber can be shipped to Mars, engineers on Earth need to build it first. This video takes us behind the scenes, showcasing a just a few of the aspects that go into this incredibly time-consuming project. One of the primary topics of discussion is the painstaking painting process that requires careful attention to detail. NASA uses only specially-formulated white paint that reflects sunlight to house all the Mars 2020 rover’s internal components, and then carefully transports the painted product from one facility to another to prevent imperfections in the paint job. It’s crucial that paint only gets where it’s meant to go. Engineers carefully mask the portions that can’t be painted so that they remain bare metal throughout the manufacturing process.

NASA explores the Martian surface day-in and day-out with specialized rover vehicles like Curiosity, but an eye in the sky dubbed the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) helps scientists at the American space agency coordinate where those rovers should go next and delivers a steady stream of surface images to Earth for analysis. Based on just how much the MRO contributes to modern Martian exploration, it should come as no surprise to anyone that NASA is celebrating a significant milestone set by the spacecraft this past week. Astonishingly, the MRO has completed more than 60,000 loops around Mars since it first entered orbit around the red planet thirteen years ago. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech According to one of NASA’s public statements on the matter, the MRO hit this milestone 1:39 P.M. Eastern time on Wednesday. NASA also shared some fun facts, stating that the MRO races around Mars at an average break-neck speed of two miles per second. At this rate, it takes the MRO just 112 minutes to complete an orbit around Mars. Impressive indeed; but hold onto your britches because NASA says the MRO is well on its way to shattering yet another milestone later this month. Related: NASA's InSight lander is providing daily weather reports from Mars As we explained earlier, the MRO plays an integral part in helping scientists coordinate with Martian land vehicles, and this means it does a lot of wireless communication. As it would seem, the MRO is close to relaying its first full terabit of surface mission data to scientists on Earth – this data includes information from rovers and landers, such as the famous selfies that the Curiosity rover likes to take every now and again. "MRO has given scientists and the public a new perspective of Mars," said Dan Johnston, MRO project manager. "We've also supported NASA's fleet of Mars surface missions, allowing them to send their images and discoveries back to scientists on Earth." Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech "Mars is our laboratory," added MRO Deputy Project Scientist Leslie Tamppari. "After more than a decade, we've collected enough data to formulate and test hypotheses to see how they change or hold up over time." Related: Where should we land the upcoming Mars 2020 rover? Thanks to the MRO, we now know a lot more about our neighboring planet than we ever did before its launch. With more than 378,000 images snapped throughout its lifetime, MRO has offered a unique look at Mars’ surface features and allowed scientists to track how they change with time. This information is valuable, especially as we march closer toward the eventual goal of sending humans to Mars to explore the world in person. It should be interesting to see how many more milestones the MRO will shatter, but only time will tell… Source: NASA

Mankind has been considering the idea of putting astronauts on Mars for the longest time, but this week, NASA has officially announced its interest in putting people on Mars to live there with the help of other space agencies around the world. As revealed in a recent video we shared, it would be no easy task to put astronauts on Mars and keep them there. It would be difficult to re-supply the astronauts with necessities, such as food, because at times, Mars can get far away from Earth as it orbits the Sun and it would take months to get supplies from Earth to Mars. Nonetheless, NASA is confident that we’re closer than ever before to putting people on Mars. “NASA is closer to sending American astronauts to Mars than at any point in our history,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. “Today, we are publishing additional details about our journey to Mars plan and how we are aligning all of our work in support of this goal. In the coming weeks, I look forward to continuing to discuss the details of our plan with members of Congress, as well as our commercial and our international and partners, many of whom will be attending the International Astronautical Congress next week.” First the space agency will have to push their plans through Congress, where it can get approved. Future meetings and discussions will take care of that. The idea is to break three boundaries that have kept mankind on Earth since the dawn of man; those are: Earth Reliance Proving Ground Earth Independence Earth reliance, as NASA explains, is being dealt with via the International Space Station, which helps astronauts prepare for long space exploration trips by getting used to being away from home for long periods of time and living in a microgravity environment. This includes research that helps astronauts keep their health in order while in space, such as the constant exercise that is required in space to keep muscles from deteriorating due to the lack of having to fight gravity. NASA also wants to work on something called a Proving Ground, which are essentially test missions that will send astronauts to deep space environments, such as Mars, where they can return to Earth in just a few days. This testing will allow astronauts to, in a way, beta test what it’s like to land on another planet and whether or not it will be feasible. This will also train astronauts in a real environment where they can learn to cope with living on the Martian surface. The last thing, Earth Independence, is something that NASA says will involve building on humanity’s expansion past Earth. The idea is to get astronauts physically able to survive on the surface of another planet where it will be possible to continue searching for life in a much more detailed manner, all while trying to keep them from having to rely so heavily on those back here on Earth. This will be the final step in the mission to Mars. Starting with landings on bodies near Mars, such as Moons, NASA hopes to expand its horizons to further deep space missions in the future. NASA will use information that it has collected from near-Earth space missions, such as those to the International Space Station and our own Moon to conduct these missions. After these landings are successful, NASA would like to eventually work its way to the Martian surface. “NASA’s strategy connects near-term activities and capability development to the journey to Mars and a future with a sustainable human presence in deep space,” said William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for Human Exploration and Operations at NASA Headquarters. “This strategy charts a course toward horizon goals, while delivering near-term benefits, and defining a resilient architecture that can accommodate budgetary changes, political priorities, new scientific discoveries, technological breakthroughs, and evolving partnerships.” NASA is well aware of the risks involved, such as whether or not the astronauts will actually be able to make it on Mars in the harsh environment, or even the transportation to Mars itself. But many risks will be mitigated thanks to all of the years of research and development that the space agency has worked on. For example, NASA has been sending robots and rovers to Mars for over 40 years, and in doing so, we’ve learned much about the planet that will help ensure the safety of any astronauts to visit the red planet. It is believed that advancements in space technology over the last several years, as well as advancements to come, will help astronauts make a good impression on the Martian surface. For example, recent interest in creating a solar-powered electric propulsion rocket that can re-direct the trajectory of an asteroid would help NASA learn about the capabilities and reliability of such a technology in long-distance travel, such as that to Mars. It may be a while (decades) before astronauts actually get to Mars, since there are still a lot of things to consider, test, and develop technology for, but this announcement marks the preliminary steps of starting another “small step for man” that will be a “leap for mankind,” as American astronaut Neil Armstrong famously said during his first steps on the Moon in 1969. Source: NASA