Mars is a captivating planet, so it isn't too surprising that space agencies have put as much time and effort as they have into studying the world up close with the assistance of orbiters and rovers. Just a few years from now, NASA will extend its footprint on the red planet with the upcoming Mars 2020 rover. Armed with a plethora of compact cameras and sensors, they hope to grab more detailed observations thanks to progressions in modern imaging technology. Image Credit: NASA Mars 2020 will be the most advanced Martian rover yet; equipped with 23 different optical sensors, it’ll have more cameras than any rover put on Mars before it. Comparatively, NASA cites the Curiosity rover as having just 17 cameras, while both the Opportunity and Spirit rovers had only 10 of them. Most of the Mars 2020 rover’s cameras will reside on the exterior of the rover to study the planet while it makes its extensive trek, but one will live inside of the rover to analyze soil samples gathered along the way. One of the cameras getting installed on the Mars 2020 rover’s chassis at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is the Mastcam-Z. It's an enhancement over the Curiosity rover’s Mastcam, as it has intensified zooming capabilities. NASA’s Justin Maki, a scientist familiar with the Mastcam-Z, had this to say: “Camera technology keeps improving. Each successive mission is able to utilize these improvements, with better performance and lower cost.” Related: China wants to send 13 different payloads to Mars by 2020 But the Mastcam-Z isn’t the only significant upgrade to Mars 2020; so are the engineering cameras. NASA says Mars 2020 will come standard with high-resolution 20-megapixel color Navcams and Hazcams, which are a step up from Curiosity’s 1-megapixel black and white cameras. To accommodate for this augmented picture and video quality, Mars 2020 will include hardware and software upgrades to make sending the bigger data files back to Earth possible. Its communication equipment will see speed improvements, and its software will receive breakthrough compression methods to lessen file sizes and make it easier to beam said files back to Earth. With technology becoming more cost-efficient and powerful at the same time, future rovers like Mars 2020 will begin to come standard with all the luxury features a planetary scientist could ask for. While it makes manufacturing the rover more time-consuming, it certainly pays off in the end as the extra work yields comprehensive views of the Martian surface and elevates our understanding of the worlds around us. Mars 2020 is expected to launch by mid-2020, and we’re just as excited as those involved with the project to see what becomes of the mission. Source: NASA

In a recent study published in Science Advances, an international team of researchers led by the Paris Globe Institute of Physics estimate the amount of liquid water that might have existed on Mars billions of years ago, stating the entirety of the Red Planet might have once been covered with an ocean greater than 300 meters (950 feet) deep. "At this time, Mars was bombarded with asteroids filled with ice. It happened in the first 100 million years of the planet's evolution. Another interesting angle is that the asteroids also carried organic molecules that are biologically important for life," said Dr. Martin Bizzarro, who is a professor from the Centre for Star and Planet Formation, and a co-author on the study. While Mars is both a cold and dry world today, things were much different billions of years ago, as oceans and volcanoes were both active across its vast surface, and possibly life. The researchers came to their findings by examining a billion-year-old meteorite on Mars, which was possible since the Red Planet lacks the plate tectonics that are seen on Earth. This means the meteorite was a part of the original crust of Mars. "Plate tectonics on Earth erased all evidence of what happened in the first 500 million years of our planet's history. The plates constantly move and are recycled back and destroyed into the interior of our planet. In contrast, Mars does not have plate tectonics such that planet's surface preserves a record of the earliest history of the planet," Dr. Bizzarro explained. Sources: Science Advances As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!

Who doesn’t like to zap things, even if only imaginary? Nearly everyone at some point in their life has yelled, “Pew! Pew! Pew!”, for fun. But when it comes to science, especially science on other planets, the zapping is very real, and NASA’s Perseverance Rover on Mars is happily zapping away as it tries to unlock the secrets of the mysterious Red Planet. But this pioneering rover does more than just zap. It listens, too. For the last two decades, Dr. Roger Wiens, a professor of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences in the College of Science at Purdue University, and an expert in Mars robotics technology, has been building instruments to give humans eyes and a nose on Mars -- and now he's helping add ears as well. Dr. Wiens led the team that built SuperCam, which is an instrument onboard NASA’s Perseverance Rover that’s designed to literally zap rocks as well as building the microphone responsible for sending back the first sounds of the Red Planet to Earth. "When I was at Los Alamos National Laboratory, I started looking around to see if there were any Department of Energy technologies that we might be able to harness and use for planetary science, and that's where Curiosity's ChemCam, which later evolved into Perseverance's SuperCam, came from," Dr. Wiens said. SuperCam is capable of zapping rocks up to 30 feet (9.14 meters) away, which is helpful since Perseverance’s arm can’t reach that far. Once zapped, SuperCam collects the light created in the brief flash that is then analyzed to learn more about the rocks, ultimately unlocking the secrets of the geology of Mars. "When we zap these rocks, we can find out more about their hardness and composition by listening to the change in sound as a number of laser shots get fired into the rock in the same spots," Dr. Wiens said. "We can hear the helicopter Ingenuity, which is something we didn't expect to be able to hear. We can hear the wind and measure the speed and direction, as well as measure the size and speed of dust devils. We can listen to the rover's own sounds and monitor health and safety the same way you gauge your car's well-being by listening to the motor. Things sound different on Earth because the rover's ears are shaped different from ours and the atmosphere is so different, but we're making recordings and learning things every other day." SuperCam SuperCam is a remote-sensing instrument designed to study the mineralogy, chemistry, and atomic and molecular composition of samples encountered on Mars. The instrument is, in fact, many instruments in one. One unique feature of SuperCam is that it can rapidly acquire data without the need to reposition the rover or its arm upon the desired target, and it’s continuing to teach us about Mars with every zap it takes. As always, keep doing science & keep looking up! Sources: NASA Mars

NASA plans to launch the Mars 2020 rover mission by July 2020, a move that should spell out a February 2021 landing. But before the rover is ready for launch, there are few finishing touches that the team needs to add to ensure proper landing and function when it finally arrives at the red planet. It was only a couple of weeks ago that engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory attached a fully autonomous drone-like helicopter to the rover’s chassis, but more recently, engineers at JPL have placed the assembled 2,300-pounch chassis on a spin table to rotate it back and forth. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech It may seem like a pointless endeavor to the untrained eye, but this process is actually rather important to rover-centric missions. By rotating the assembled chassis back and forth like this, engineers at JPL can ascertain the Mars 2020 rover’s center of gravity and improve it by adding metal weights to ensure stability when the rover lands on the Martian surface. Related: The Mars 2020 rover will sport 20/20 vision "The spin table process is similar to how a gas station would balance a new tire before putting it on your car," elucidated Lemil Cordero, one of the engineers who worked with the Mars 2020 rover during the balancing act. "We rotate the rover back and forth and look for asymmetries in its mass distribution. Then, similar to your gas station putting small weights on the tire's rim to bring it into balance, we'll put small balance masses on the rover in specific locations to get its center of gravity exactly where we want it." Related: Here's how the Mars 2020 mission is progressing so far After approximating the chassis’ center of gravity, JPL engineers performed a few mathematical calculations and identified where it needed improvement. In a public statement, NASA said that 44 pounds’ worth of tungsten weights were then added to the bottom of the rover to make it more bottom-heavy, as a top-heavy rover would be unstable as it falls from the sky. It’s worth noting that this was just a preliminary spin test. A second spin test will purportedly occur next Spring at a second location just before the rover is set to launch. This will ensure that any changes to the Mars 2020 rover between now and then retain the ideal center of gravity and that there weren’t any errors the first time. Source: NASA

Two-tone mineral veins at a site NASA's Curiosity rover has reached by climbing a layered Martian mountain offer clues about multiple episodes of fluid movement. These episodes occurred later than the wet environmental conditions that formed lake-bed deposits the rover examined at the mountain's base.Curiosity has analyzed rock samples drilled from three targets lower on the mountain in the past seven months. It found a different mineral composition at each, including a silica mineral named cristobalite in the most recent sample. These differences, together with the prominent veins seen in images taken a little farther uphill, illustrate how the layers of Mount Sharp provide a record of different stages in the evolution of the area's ancient environment.The two-tone veins are at the site called "Garden City." They appear as a network of ridges left standing above the now eroded-away bedrock in which they formed. Individual ridges range up to about 2.5 inches (6 centimeters) high and half that in width, and they bear both bright and dark material."Some of them look like ice-cream sandwiches: dark on both edges and white in the middle," said Linda Kah, a Curiosity science-team member at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. "These materials tell us about secondary fluids that were transported through the region after the host rock formed."Veins such as these form where fluids move through cracked rock and deposit minerals in the fractures, often affecting the chemistry of the rock surrounding the fractures. Curiosity has found bright veins composed of calcium sulfate at several previous locations. The dark material preserved here presents an opportunity to learn more. Kah said, "At least two secondary fluids have left evidence here. We want to understand the chemistry of the different fluids that were here and the sequence of events. How have later fluids affected the host rock?"Some of the sequence is understood: Mud that formed lake-bed mudstones Curiosity examined near its 2012 landing site and after reaching Mount Sharp must have dried and hardened before the fractures formed. The dark material that lines the fracture walls reflects an earlier episode of fluid flow than the white, calcium-sulfate-rich veins do, although both flows occurred after the cracks formed.Garden City is about 39 feet (12 meters) higher than the bottom edge of the "Pahrump Hills" outcrop of the bedrock forming the basal layer of Mount Sharp, at the center of Mars' Gale Crater. The Curiosity mission spent about six months examining the first 33 feet (10 meters) of elevation at Pahrump Hills, climbing from the lower edge to higher sections three times to vertically profile the rock structures and chemistry, and to select the best targets for drilling."We investigated Pahrump Hills the way a field geologist would, looking over the whole outcrop first to choose the best samples to collect, and it paid off," said David Blake of NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California, principal investigator for the Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) analytical laboratory instrument inside the rover.Analysis is still preliminary, but the three drilled samples from Pahrump Hills have clear differences in mineral ingredients. The first, "Confidence Hills," had the most clay minerals and hematite, both of which commonly form under wet conditions. The second, "Mojave," had the most jarosite, an oxidized mineral containing iron and sulfur that forms in acidic conditions. The third is "Telegraph Peak." Examination of Garden City has not included drilling a sample.Blake said, "Telegraph Peak has almost no evidence of clay minerals, the hematite is nearly gone and jarosite abundance is down. The big thing about this sample is the huge amount of cristobalite, at about 10 percent or more of the crystalline material." Cristobalite is a mineral form of silica. The sample also contains a small amount of quartz, another form of silica. Among the possibilities are that some process removed other ingredients, leaving an enrichment of silica behind; or that dissolved silica was delivered by fluid transport; or that the cristobalite formed elsewhere and was deposited with the original sediment.NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Project is using Curiosity to examine environments that offered favorable conditions for microbial life on ancient Mars, if the planet ever has hosted microbes, and the changes from those environments to drier conditions that have prevailed on Mars for more than three billion years.After investigations in the Telegraph Peak area, the rover team plans to drive Curiosity through a valley called "Artist's Drive" to reach higher layers. Engineers are meanwhile developing guidelines for best use of the rover's drill, following detection of a transient short circuit last month while using the tool's percussion action to shake rock powder into a sample-processing device. Drilling can use both rotary and percussion actions."We expect to use percussion as part of drilling in the future while we monitor whether shorts become more frequent," said Steve Lee of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. Lee became deputy project manager for the Mars Science Laboratory Project this month. He previously led the project's Guidance, Navigation and Control Team from design through landing.(Source: NASA)

NASA has been exploring Mars since the 1960’s, but it wasn’t until today’s modern technology and advanced computers that they’ve been able to answer so many unanswered questions about the red planet. One of those is the abundance of certain isotopes in Mars’ atmosphere. Using the Curiosity Rover, which first started crawling around on the red planet’s surface in 2012, NASA has been able to study the chemical content of Mars’ surface and atmosphere. In particular, they can use the on-board Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instruments to measure chemical composition and properties. One of the more recent findings is the higher presence of krypton and xenon isotopes in the atmosphere than originally thought, both of which are “chemical variants” of the two elements because they have more neutrons than the basic form of the element. It’s worth noting that these isotopes exist in greater amounts on Mars than they do on Earth, and scientists think they might know why. In a study published in the Earth and Planetary Science Letters, NASA explains how Mars’ surface, the chemicals embedded in the crust themselves, could be contributing to the existence of these isotopes. "What we found is that earlier studies of xenon and krypton only told part of the story," said Pamela Conrad, study lead author and SAM's deputy principal investigator at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "SAM is now giving us the first complete in situ benchmark against which to compare meteorite measurements." In essence, some of the isotopic existence may be a result of meteorites striking Mars, but that’s certainly not the only source of these isotopes. Using static mass spectrometry, a way to analyze mere trace amounts of gases or isotopes, NASA was able to come up with the conclusions that some of the isotopes didn’t quite form as expected, suggesting there was more to the mystery than just meteorites. The new theory comes by way of a natural process known as neutron capture, which is where the isotopes may be formed inside of the planet’s crust before being released into the atmosphere. Barium and bromine in the crust may have surrendered some of their neutrons to xenon and krypton respectively, producing what are known as xenon-124 and 126 and krypton-80 and 82. Image Credit: NASA/GSFC/JPL-Caltech The impacts from space rocks may have helped release these gasses into the atmosphere, and over time, even the cracks in the red planet’s surface may have allowed them to escape the crust. "SAM's measurements provide evidence of a really interesting process in which the rock and unconsolidated material at the planet's surface have contributed to the xenon and krypton isotopic composition of the atmosphere in a dynamic way," Conrad continued. It's worth noting that the Mars 2020 rover is still under development and will, in coming years, become the latest edition of red planet-roving robots to study the planet, furthering our knowledge of its composition and the possibility that it may be able to support life. Equipped with the latest technology, it may even provide more clues into this study. Source: NASA

When small whirlwinds or vortexes of air occur, you sometimes get the chance to experience what are known as dust devils. These are essentially tornado-looking structures that capture dust within the swirl of wind to give it its intimidating appearance. On the other hand, these kinds of things don't just happen on Earth. NASA's Curiosity Rover recently had the opportunity to observe and capture a dust devil happening on the Martian surface, which means even the red planet is capable of producing these kinds of structures. Curiosity captured several dust devils, which are shown in the video, with its Navigation Camera during routine explorations of Gale Crater throughout the Summer season on Mars. That said, the footage is very recent. NASA commented saying that as the Sun heats up the Martian surface, risings of air can cause dust to get kicked up from the planet's surface, which is what you see when the dust devils appear. Since dust devils are actively happening on Mars, this means that other things besides space rocks are actively shaping the red planet's surface as we speak.

When space agencies like NASA send landers and rovers to other places in the solar system to explore, one of the most challenging questions they’re compelled to answer is where to land. Mars is one of the most common landing sites in the entire solar system, and NASA is careful to balance safety with scientific yield. For example, landings are most likely to go according to plan when the landing surface is flat rather than rigid; but we also want to land as close as possible to areas of interest rather than far away from them. When NASA sends things to Mars, it usually targets the equatorial region for landing. It’s vast, seasonally-stable, and maximizes sunlight exposure to onboard solar panels for power. NASA does its best to avoid potential hazards, such as steep embarkments where a lander could tumble to its doom, soft and mushy regions where a lander could get stuck, and high plateaus which landers can’t escape from. A bevy of other factors also play a role, and this video explains them best.

Researchers from the University of Texas have found that a huge amount of liquid water likely rained down from the skies onto Mars to form its now-empty lakes between 3.5 and 4 billion years ago. "This is extremely important because 3.5 to 4 billion years ago, Mars was covered with water. It had lots of rain or snowmelt to fill those channels and lakes," says Gaia Stucky de Quay, lead author of the study. "Now it's completely dry. We're trying to understand how much water was there and where did it all go." While it is extremely difficult to model Mars' climate from so long ago, studies on both the planet's geomorphology and chemistry suggest it once held a lot of water both from rainfall and snowmelt. For the new study, the researchers examined 96 lakes and their watersheds on Mars from satellite images and typography. They were either classified as 'open basins', having been ruptured by overflowing water or 'closed basins', still intact and free from ruptures. Assessing the basins allowed the researchers to see how much rainfall and snowmelt were needed to fill them without being breached and see them overflow Where the same river fed closed and open basins, the researchers could predict both the maximum and minimum rainfall that had fallen. As such, in just one rainstorm- which could have lasted from just a few days to thousands of years- the researchers estimated that precipitation could have been between 4 and 159 meters. Although the effects of water can be seen all over the planet, as some lakes were located in more arid regions, they likely received less water than the more humid areas. While the researchers say that their findings may help improve and test our climate models for Mars, they say that they are inconclusive by themselves. This comes especially when considering other research suggesting that these valleys were carved by icy glaciers and metwaters beneath ice sheets as opposed to running water. Sources: University of Texas, Science Alert, LabRoots, Geology

If you’ve been paying any attention to NASA lately, then you’ve undoubtedly heard about the space agency’s InSight mission for Mars. NASA launched InSight from California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base in May, and after a six-month journey through space, the lander officially touched down on the Martian surface Monday afternoon. Citing an official statement released by NASA, InSight landed on Mars at approximately 3 P.M. Eastern time. Just before contacting the ground, InSight initiated its camera system to capture a hazy photograph of its landing site: a flat and smooth region near the equator known to planetary scientists as Elysium Planitia. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-CalTech NASA engineers were alerted to the successful landing after one of the space agency’s two Mars Cube One (MarCO) CubeSats relayed the signal to Earth. Both CubeSats followed InSight to Mars, and as NASA points out, they’re the first two CubeSats to be sent into deep space. "Today, we successfully landed on Mars for the eighth time in human history," NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine expressed with excitement Monday afternoon. "InSight will study the interior of Mars and will teach us valuable science as we prepare to send astronauts to the Moon and later to Mars. This accomplishment represents the ingenuity of America and our international partners, and it serves as a testament to the dedication and perseverance of our team. The best of NASA is yet to come, and it is coming soon." Related: Will NASA ever get back in touch with the Opportunity rover? Once InSight approached Mars’ atmosphere, it went in for an autonomous nose-dive. The lander’s heat shield took most of the abuse during atmospheric insertion, but soon after, the lander deployed a parachute to slow its descent. When InSight approached the ground, it broke away from its parachute and thrusters took over to stabilize the landing procedure. As promised, NASA live-streamed the InSight landing event on its website and YouTube. The video included commentary from NASA officials, in addition to detailed synopses involving the landing procedure and potential concerns of what could go wrong. We’ve embedded the frame of that video below for your viewing pleasure: Worthy of note, InSight isn’t out of the woods just yet. Despite the near-perfect landing procedure, NASA can’t use the lander for scientific operations unless its solar arrays deploy correctly. The space agency expects to receive confirmation of successful solar array deployment sometime Monday evening. "We are solar powered, so getting the arrays out and operating is a big deal," said Tom Hoffman, InSight’s project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "With the arrays providing the energy we need to start the cool science operations, we are well on our way to thoroughly investigate what's inside of Mars for the very first time." Assuming everything goes according to plan, InSight will study many of Mars’ internal mechanisms. Among the plethora of qualities InSight will investigate are the planet’s internal temperature, the nature of Marsquakes, and the planet’s orbital wobble. These details should help planetary scientists in their quest to compare Mars with Earth and better understand its formation. It should be interesting to see what InSight teaches us about the red planet, but only time will tell. Source: NASA

Up north on Mars’s surface lies a region called Arabia Terra, an area with many craters and heavy erosion approximately the same size as Europe. The topography of Arabia Terra presents a unique history of the Martian landscape through its layers of different rocks and sediment. Scientists speculate that these rock formations provide a record of Mars’s surface environments dating back 4,100 to 3,700 million years ago. This period, known as the Noachian, occurred approximately when life forms first appeared on Earth. Without the ability to directly observe the geological formations within Arabia Terra, researchers at Johns Hopkins University and Northern Arizona University used satellites to collect data on the geological formations. A new study published in GeoScienceWorld proposes that water existed on Mars briefly within the region. To come to this conclusion, researchers measured the thermal inertia of materials in the regions. Thermal inertia is the ability of a material to resist thermal change. Water, for instance, has high thermal inertia because it takes a relatively long amount of time to heat up or cool down. Studying the thermal inertia of the deposits in Arabia Terra had not been done before this study, giving researchers a novel look at Mars’s geology. The geological layers present in Arabia Terra indicated varying surface conditions, and some of the layers had the distinctive properties of elevated thermal inertial compared to surrounding rocks and layers. Usually, this evidence is generally indicative of an aqueous presence. Still, the number of deposits was not as homogenous as one would expect from water that covered a large area or lasted a long time, so it’s possible that water only existed for a short time. The discovery of historical evidence for water is just the tip of the iceberg. The chance of life forming during this time is slim, but researchers want to investigate why water may have existed for only a brief time and then disappeared. For lead researcher Ari Koeppel, this raises many questions. “Could there have been glaciers that melted quickly with outbursts of huge floods? Could there have been a groundwater system that percolated up out of the ground, […] only to sink back down?" After decades of data collection on Mars’s environment, researchers are excited to study Mars in depths similar to how we are able to study Earth. Sources: GeoScienceWorld, ScienceDaily

Ever since NASA’s great announcement last year, where the space agency publicized its interest in sending mankind to Mars, there has been a lot of of buzz about just when and how we’d be sending people to live on Mars’ harsh extraterrestrial environment. Although there have been lots of ideas and there have been requirements set forth by the United States government for NASA to develop some kind of prototype blueprint for how humans could settle on the red planet before taking it any further, NASA admitted on Wednesday that mankind is still a “long way” away from settling on the red planet permanently. SpaceX’s Elon Musk may believe that we’ll have human colonization thriving on the surface of Mars within the future, but NASA doesn’t think we’ll have more than just a temporary base and testing facility by the end of 2030, suggesting that some of the most recently speculations may be blown far out of proportion. That’s not to say that companies like SpaceX couldn’t develop Mars colonies of their own in the future. With the proper governmental permissions and enough money, anything could happen. It just doesn’t appear that NASA shares the same desires at this point in time. According to NASA's Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate Ben Bussey, permanent settlement on Mars is “a long way down the road. No one's thinking of, on the NASA side, like a permanent human base.” “The idea here is that you would have your exploration zone that you set up for the first crew,” Bussey continued. "And that crew would leave, and then you send another crew at the next good launch opportunity. So it isn't permanently occupied, but it is visited multiple times." Such a facility might be a lot like the International Space Station, in which astronauts would aim to live on the base for temporary periods of time before returning back to Earth. While there, astronauts could conduct tests and research that could be phoned back home to Earth to improve our understanding of the red planet. The obvious difficulties are in how it takes so long to get to Mars. It can be as quick as 6 months, or as long as two years, which provides hardly any time at all for dealing with health emergencies or re-supplying the astronauts. These are all hurdles NASA will have to overcome before these kinds of deep-space missions become commonplace. Source: Headlines and Global News

Credit: NASA/USGS Labroots has rich history of examining Mars in great detail, including its suite of awesome geologic formations, stunning orbiter images, two moons, geologic and observational history, and potential for past life, just to name a few. Here, we will be examining one of the most recognizable locations on Mars, which also happens to be the largest off-Earth canyon in the Solar System, Valles Marineris, which is second only to the rift valleys of the mid-ocean ridge system on Earth. The colossal canyon known as Valles Marineris is so big that it stretches almost one-fourth of the entire Red Planet’s circumference, or equivalent to just over the entire coast-to-coast distance of the United States. With a total length of approximately 2500 mi (4000 km) and a depth of up to 4 mi (7 km), Valles Marineris more than eclipses the Grand Canyon in both categories, with the latter standing at 277 mi (445 km) and 1.1 mi (1.8 km), respectively. While Mars has been observed with telescopes for hundreds of years, Valles Marineris went unobserved until it got its first close-up by NASA’s Mariner 9 spacecraft in 1972. Most scientists refer to Valles Marineris as a large tectonic “crack” that was formed during the Red Planet’s cooling phase, which resulted in the rising crust in Mars’ Tharsis region west of what is now Valles Marineris, and also causing the crust to widen due to erosional forces. Valles Marineris is largely comprised of a series of steep depressions known as chasmata, a multitude of channels that lead directly into the canyon, likely from rushing water billions of years ago. There is also evidence of volcanic ash and eroded material within the canyon, as well. Valles Marineris has been examined in intricate detail by a variety of Mars orbiters over the decades, and continues to amaze both scientists and astronomy lovers alike. What new insights will we learn about Mars’ Grand Canyon? Only time will tell, and this is why we science! Sources: Labroots, Labroots (1), Labroots (2), Labroots (3), Labroots (4), Labroots (5), NASA, Arizona State University, Space.com As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!

Mars is one of our closest planetary neighbors, and yet we still have so much to learn about it. One of the questions that planetary scientists have yet to answer all these years is where all of the sand composing Mars’ sand comes from, and thanks to an image snapped by the Context Camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), we might finally have a lead. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona The image depicts a sizeable semi-circular depression on Mars’ surface containing sediments of all different colors, and NASA says the darker ones might tell a story that’s instrumental to the planet’s excess of dunes. Related: Here's why Mars is dry and lifeless today The space agency explains that the darker sediments are being eroded away by bedrock in the region photographed, and the downslope lineations you see just underneath everything are indicative of a gravitational feed. As it would seem, this evidence supports the concept that wind alone isn’t responsible for moving the vast amounts of sand that creates the dunes we see on Mars’ surface today. Instead, this erosion process might be behind a lot of it. Moreover, this sand-formation process could be more widespread and happening from one depression to the next. NASA goes on to reveal that as sand grains are formed, the wind picks them up and moves them around, wearing them down through a process called comminution. As it happens, the larger-sized sand grains break into smaller ones. Many of the particles break apart to become so small over time that they have little effect on dune formation. With that in mind, sand formation needs to be a constant process, or else the dunes would cease to exist. Related: Did previous space rock impacts make Mars more habitable? We still have much to learn about the Martian surface, but as missions like that of the MRO and Curiosity Rover continue, we will keep collecting valuable data that could answer are seemingly-endless questions. Source: NASA

It’s only been about a month since NASA’s InSight lander touched down on the Martian surface, but it has already accomplished a plethora of preliminary tasks ahead of its future scientific observations. Soon after landing at Elysium Planitia, the lander captured photographs of its surroundings with its onboard camera system. Additional images captured with the Mars-orbiting Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show the InSight lander’s parachute, chassis, and heat shield deployed on the planet’s surface. It wasn’t long after that InSight took a mandatory selfie. Once NASA was satisfied with InSight’s landing job and surroundings, the space agency activated some of its onboard instruments and captured sounds of the Martian winds with the seismometer and air pressure sensor. All of this happened before NASA officially deployed the seismometer on the Martian surface. With InSight getting ready to explore the heart of Mars for information about the planet’s thermodynamics, Marsquakes, and planetary wobble, we expect NASA that will be able to paint a better picture of Mars’ formation and get a better idea about whether the planet once supported life. Fortunately, we can count on the Curiosity rover to do some exploring while we continue waiting for InSight to finish setting itself up.

Researchers are saying that a discovery of stains from summertime flows down cliffs and crater walls increases the chances of Mars being home to some form of life. The trickling water leaves long, dark stains on the Martian terrain that can reach hundreds of meters downhill in the warmer months before they dry up in the Fall as surface temperatures drop. NASA has taken images from the Mars orbit which show cliffs and the steep walls of valleys and craters streaking with summertime flows. In the most active spots, these flows combine to form intricate fan-like patterns. As of right now, scientists aren’t sure of the source of the water but it is being speculated that it perhaps rises up from the underground ice or salty aquifers or alternatively condense out of the thin Martian atmosphere. Michael Meyer, the lead scientists on NASA’s Mars exploration program had the following to say regarding the matter: There is liquid water today on the surface of Mars. Because of this, we suspect that it is at least possible to have a habitable environment today. The flowing water could point NASA towards the areas of Mars where they are most likely to find life. Furthermore, they also serve as landing spots for future space missions where water can be collected from a natural supply. This isn’t the first time that there have been signs of water though entirely. Some of the earliest missions to mars revealed a planet with a watery past. Pictures that were beamed back to Earth in the 1970s showed a surface that was crossed by dried-up rivers and plains that were once submerged underneath large ancient lakes. Furthermore, earlier this year, NASA unveiled that there was evidence of an ocean that might have covered half of the planets northern hemisphere in the past as well. Occasionally, probes on Mars have also found hints towards the planet still being somewhat wet. Roughly a decade ago, NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor ended up taking pictures of what appeared to be water bursting through a wall and flowing around boulders and other debris. Previously, in 2011, the high-res camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) also captured what appeared to be little streams of water flowing down crater walls from late spring to early autumn. Scientists at the time didn’t want to assume too much so they ended up naming the flows “recurring slope lineae” which is better known as RSL. Lujendra Ojha from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, along with his colleagues, used a spectrometer on the MRO to look at infrared light reflected off of the steep walls when the dark streaks had just started to appear and then again when they had grown to full length at the end of the summer on Mars. The team described how it found infrared signatures for hydrated salts when the dark flows were present but none before they had grown. These hydrated salts, which are a mix of chlorates and percholorates, are exactly what is required for the presence of water at all four sites that were inspected which consisted of the Hale, Palikir and Horowitz craters along with a large canyon called Coprates Chasma. Alfred McEwen, a planetary geologist at the University of Arizona and senior author on the study had the following to say regarding the matter: These may be the best places to search for extant life near the surface of Mars. While it would be very important to find evidence of ancient life, it would be difficult to understand the biology. Current life would be much more informative. An important thing to take note of is that the flows only seem to appear when the surface of the red planet rises above -23C. The water is able to run in such cold conditions because the salt helps to lower the freezing point of the water, allowing it to remain a liquid below the 0C freezing point. As of right now, researchers seem to be focused on figuring out the source of the water. Speculation points towards porous rocks under the Martian surface that might hold frozen water that melts in the summertime and possibly seeps up to the surface. It could also be that there are highly concentrated saline aquifers that are dotted around the bottom of the surface as saturated volumes of gritty rock. These could end up flowing in certain areas but it doesn’t help to explain the water that seeps down from the top of crater walls. McEwen’s favored possibility regarding the matter is that salts on the Martian surface absorb water from the atmosphere until they have enough to run downhill. This is a process that is referred to as deliquescence and is often seen in the Atacama desert, where the resulting damp patches are known place for microbes to inhabit. According to John Bridges, a planetary science professor at the University of Leicester, though the study is fascinating, it throws up several concerns for NASA and other space agencies. The flows could potentially be used to find sources of water on the red planet making them the prime spots when it comes to hunting for life and also to land future manned-missions. That being said, we need to make sure we are doing everything possible to avoid contaminating another planets microbes with those from earth – a move which makes the wet areas some of the most difficult to visit. Everyone’s view on Mars appears to be evolving and it appears that the red planet will remain a hot topic of discussion for quite some time, in both the industry and outside of it. Source: NASA (Press Release), Nature Geoscience, ScienceMag, The Guardian

A recent study published in Nature Communications reports volcanic activity beneath the surface of Mars could be responsible for driving repetitive “marsquakes” – sudden and violent shakings of the ground, similar to earthquakes, but on the surface of Mars. A team of scientists from Australia National University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing have discovered 47 marsquakes that were previously undetected. These marsquakes originated beneath the Martian crust in an area of Mars called Cerberus Fossae – this is a seismically active region on Mars that is believed to be less than 20 million years old. The team speculates that magma in the mantle of Mars – the inner layer of Mars that exists between the crust and the core – is the cause of the observed marsquakes. The researchers used data collected by a seismometer on NASA’s InSight lander, which landed on the surface of Mars in 2018. The goal of the InSight mission is to understand the evolutionary history of Mars, which would provide glimpses into the evolutionary processes of all the rocky planets in our inner Solar System. Since landing on Mars, InSight has been collecting data on marsquakes – first detected in 2020, confirming that Mars is still a seismically active planet – weather on Mars, and the interior of Mars. Mars does not have plate tectonics like our home planet Earth, and because of this it is less geologically active than Earth, thus it retains a much more complete record of its geologic history in is structure (i.e., core, mantle, and crust) than the Earth. Studying the size, thickness, density, and overall structure of Mars, and the rate at which heat escapes from the planet’s interior, can help scientists learn about the geological history of the planet. The marsquakes detected by the team suggest that Mars is more seismically active than previously believed. The team suspects that movement of molten rock – or magma – in the mantle of Mars is the driving force behind the observed marsquakes. This new data suggests that the mantle of Mars is still active and this crucial knowledge may help to answer fundamental questions about why Mars no longer has a magnetic field surrounding it. This information may help the team understand whether convection is still occurring inside the planet’s interior – which is understood to be the driving force behind the Earth’s planetary magnetic field – thus suggesting that there is another mechanism that prevents a planetary magnetic field from existing around Mars. Earth’s magnetic field shields the surface from cosmic radiation, which allows life as we know it to exist! If we can understand the formation of Mars’ magnetic field, how it evolved, and when in the planet’s geologic history it disappeared, it may help us to establish human life on Mars in the future. Sources: Australian National University

In a recent study published in Nature Astronomy, a team of researchers from Cornell University examined bright spots beneath the south pole of Mars and hypothesize that they are the results of geologic layering, not liquid water. This study holds the potential to help us better understand the overall makeup of the Red Planet and how we might find liquid water on, or beneath, its surface. "On Earth, reflections that bright are often an indication of liquid water, even buried lakes like Lake Vostok," said Dr. Dan Lalich, a Research Associate at the Cornell Center for Astrophysics & Planetary Science at Cornell University, and lead author of the study. "But on Mars, the prevailing opinion was that it should be too cold for similar lakes to form." Using simulations with layers comprised of atmosphere, carbon dioxide (CO2) ice, water ice, and basalt, Dr. Lalich was able to create reflections with brightness levels that were equivalent to the actual observations made on Mars. "I used CO2 layers embedded within the water ice because we know it already exists in large quantities near the surface of the ice cap," said Dr. Lalich. "In principle, though, I could have used rock layers or even particularly dusty water ice and I would have gotten similar results. The point of this paper is really that the composition of the basal layers is less important than the layer thicknesses and separations." The researchers ascertained that the separation between layers and their respective thickness play a bigger role on the reflective properties than the composition of each layer. "None of the work we've done disproves the possible existence of liquid water down there," Lalich said. "We just think the interference hypothesis is more consistent with other observations. I'm not sure anything short of a drill could prove either side of this debate definitively right or wrong." Sources: Nature Astronomy As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!

Did Mars become more habitable over time all thanks to the collisions it has endured from large space rocks like asteroids and comets? In a study documented in the Earth and Planetary Science Letters, scientists reveal that these impacts may be some of the leading factors in why Mars has such a habitable temperature range and flowing water among other potential life-supporting features. The scientists used 3D computer modelling to predict what happened to the planet and its living conditions during the times of these impacts. Although there are still no traces of complex life on Mars, or any other planet in our solar system for that matter, it is believed that the living conditions on Mars are constantly changing due to these impacts and the conditions there may be just right for life forms to begin emerging, just like they magically did here on Earth. The remnants of flowing water found on Mars may be that of melted ice from a once-wet planet that has evaporated from the lack of a protective magnetic field against solar activity, and all of that water may have been brought there by way of space rocks. The activity from these spatial bodies smacking the planet millions of years ago also would have warmed the planet up. This activity causes high amounts of energy deep within the planet’s crust, which has since cooled down significantly from the lack of recent impacts, which explains why the planet is so cold now. Unlike the Earth, which has tons of flowing water and a strong protective magnetic field, Mars is a barren desert wasteland with only small amount of verified flowing water. Regardless, its position in the solar system makes it a prime breeding ground for potential life. While modern rover and spacecraft equipment still has yet to find any life forms on the red planet, NASA eventually wants to send mankind to Mars so they can perform their own experimentations and search there without relying on robots to do it all. Further sampling and mapping of the Martian environment may reveal interesting discoveries, especially below the planet’s surface where the Sun’s harmful rays don’t penetrate. Source: Cosmos Magazine,

Humankind has sent spacecraft to a plethora of worlds in our solar system, including asteroids, comets, moons, and planets. Of all, Mars has consistently proven to be the most difficult to stick a landing on; but have you ever wondered why that’s the case? Of all the Martian landing attempts to date, only 40% have succeeded. Despite the flat terrain that comprises the Martian surface and the lack of apparent toxic clouds in the air, we can attribute Mars’ unique atmospheric qualities to the challenges of landing a spacecraft on the red planet safely. Mars’ atmosphere is 100 times thinner than that of Earth’s, making parachutes up to ten times less effective at slowing the spacecraft down during descent. We can combat this quandary with bigger parachutes, but you can only make a parachute so large before it becomes prone to rips and failure. Instead, NASA uses carefully-planned landing techniques involving parachutes and thrusters. After the parachute drops the entry speed to around 200 miles per hour, landing thrusters carry the spacecraft down the rest of the way. When it comes to landing with thrusters, timing is everything; deploying too early or too late ruins the landing entirely. Only three space agencies have ever landed on Mars, and none of them have a perfect record. But as we practice these techniques again and again, perhaps that 40% figure will improve with time.

Lockheed Martin, a global company worth billions of dollars that has a wide range of technical interests and capabilities, has announced that it plans to build a space station that will orbit Mars. The scheme was unveiled at the Humans 2 Mars Summit on May 18. The project's timeline ends in 2028, when humans will occupy the orbiter. The company is currently producing a deep-space crew module, called Orion, for NASA. The new proposal relies significantly on a timeline already in place that lays the foundations of the project. Orion is slated to venture outside low-Earth orbit first with a moon mission, sans crew, in 2018 followed by a moon flyby, with crew, in 2021. In the years leading up to 2025, increasingly ambitious goals would be set for missions at moon-like distances, culminating in a “dry run” to Mars during which the crew would remain within approximately three days’ travel time from Earth, in case a quick emergency return was required. It would actually take at least six months to travel from Earth to Mars. The plan calls for NASA to put a structure in orbit around Mars in 2026. It would be composed of some solar arrays and uninhabited modules that would be occupied by humans two years later. That team of six would have a laboratory and a base for future missions. There is plenty of skepticism from researchers in the field. “This doesn’t look terribly new in terms of a 12-year time line,” said an archivist at the U.S. Geological Survey's Astrogeology Science Center, David Portree. “In 1963, NASA engineers were seeing if they could land on Mars in 1971.” Scott Hubbard, director of Stanford University’s Center of Excellence for Commercial Space Transportation commented, “I give them kudos for being bold. This would really require a lot of things to play right.” He notes that Lockheed Martin doesn’t lay out a lot of specifics. “All I see is that the nice video says 2028,” he said. One advantage to the plan is the orbiter. That would allow time to work out the logistics of descent and landing. “It gives one the opportunity to check out all navigation, life support, radiation protection—all the things you need to get to Mars and back without also accepting the risks that come with going to the surface,” says space policy expert John Logsdon of George Washington University. “There are good parallels between Apollo 8 and Apollo 11.” It also will remain to be seen if there is enough funding to support future work on these plans. A spokesperson for Lockheed Martin, Allison Rakes, maintains that the cost estimates made by the company would work within the existing exploration budget of NASA, assuming of course, there are increases to adjust for inflation. Sources: NASA, National Geographic, Lockheed Martin

Can the ancient past of Mars be unlocked from knowing the orientation of rocks? This is what a study published today in Earth and Space Science hopes to address as an international team of researchers led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) investigated bedrock samples that were drilled by NASA’s Perseverance rover in Jezero Crater on Mars to ascertain the original orientation of the rocks prior to the drilling, with the orientation potentially providing clues about Mars’ magnetic field history and the conditions that existed on ancient Mars. What makes this study unique is it marks the first time such a method is being conducted on another planet. Additionally, while orienting 3D objects is common on Earth, Perseverance is not equipped to perform such tasks. Therefore, this method had to be conducted using angles of the rover’s arm and using identifiers from the ground, as well. The team notes how this method could be applied to future in-situ studies, as well. “The orientation of rocks can tell you something about any magnetic field that may have existed on the planet,” said Dr. Benjamin Weiss, who is a professor of planetary sciences at MIT and lead author of the study. “You can also study how water and lava flowed on the planet, the direction of the ancient wind, and tectonic processes, like what was uplifted and what sunk. So, it’s a dream to be able to orient bedrock on another planet, because it’s going to open up so many scientific investigations.” This study comes while Perseverance is busy dropping samples on the Martian surface for future missions to retrieve and bring back to Earth, which NASA plans to accomplish sometime in the 2030s, known simply as Mars Sample Return. What new methods will scientists develop to teach us more about the Red Planet 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: Earth and Space Science, EurekAlert!, MIT News Featured Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Is there life on Mars or has life ever existed in its ancient past? What conditions would be the right combination for life to exist there? These questions are what NASA’s Curiosity and Perseverance rovers are trying to answer as they continue to explore the barren and dry landscape of the Red Planet in hopes of unlocking its secrets above or buried deep beneath the surface. One such component that could contribute to life is methane, which has been identified by the Curiosity rover to exist on Mars in bursts. Now, a recent study published in Journal of Geophysical Research Letters: Planets (JGR: Planets) hopes to explain why, how, and when these methane gases reach the surface in bursts. This study holds the potential to help scientists better understand the internal mechanisms of Mars and whether this could lead to life existing on the Red Planet. 2019 news report discussing Curiosity finding methane on Mars. “Understanding Mars’ methane variations has been highlighted by NASA’s Curiosity team as the next key step towards figuring out where it comes from,” said John Ortiz, who is a PhD Student Researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory and lead author of the study. “There are several challenges associated with meeting that goal, and a big one is knowing what time of a given sol (Martian day) is best for Curiosity to perform an atmospheric sampling experiment.” For the study, the researchers used a multitude of computer models to simulate the transport of methane from the Martian subsurface compared to atmospheric methane levels with the goal of determining when Curiosity should use its instruments to sample the methane gas as it escapes the subsurface to provide a best analysis of these processes. In the end, the researchers determined that the best time for Curiosity to sample these methane outbursts are late morning or early evening with their models predicting “short-lived methane pulses prior to sunrise for Mars' upcoming northern summer period”, according to the researchers. As noted, methane is a potential component for life, and better understanding methane processes on Mars could help scientists gain greater insight into whether life currently exists, or once existed, on the Red Planet. What new discoveries will Curiosity make about methane outbursts 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: JGR: Planets, ScienceDaily, Los Alamos National Laboratory Featured Image: Selfie image of NASA’s Curiosity rover taken on October 11, 2019. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems)

A recent study published in Nature attempts to examine a remarkable discovery regarding the existence of a molten silicate layer resting on top of the metallic core of Mars. This study challenges previous research regarding the internal structure of Mars based on data gathered by the now-retired NASA InSight mission and holds the potential to help scientists gain better insights into both the formation and evolution of the Red Planet. This previous research includes an October 2022 study that used surface waves emanating from two meteorite impacts on Mars to learn about the Martian crust and an April 2023 study that used seismic data from InSight to take the first direct measurements of the Martian core. However, this new study presents findings that the core of Mars is both smaller and denser than previously hypothesized, noting the existence of a molten layer that lies between the Martian mantle and core. “The blanket not only insulates the heat coming from the core and prevents the core from cooling, but also concentrates radioactive elements whose decay generates heat” said Dr. Vedran Lekic, who is a professor of geology at the University of Maryland and a co-author on the recent study. “And when that happens, the core is likely to be unable to produce the convective motions that would create a magnetic field—which can explain why Mars currently doesn’t have an active magnetic field around it.” Artist rendition of the molten silicate layer that potentially exists on top of the core of Mars with the lines depicting seismic waves collected by the NASA InSight lander (left) from meteorite impacts (top). (Credit: IPGP-CNES) The lack of a magnetic field on Mars means the surface is constantly bombarded with solar radiation, leading to a lack of liquid water across its surface but making it inhospitable for life, as well. This is in stark contrast to the Earth, whose magnetic field shields us from this harmful radiation while allowing liquid water and life to be sustainable, as well. The team’s findings indicate that the heat produced by the radioactive elements at this newly discovered molten layer could have significantly changed how the Red Planet cooled over time, which could have led to the disappearance of its magnetic field. “These layers, if widespread, can have pretty big consequences for the rest of the planet,” said Dr. Lekic. “Their existence can help tell us whether magnetic fields can be generated and maintained, how planets cool over time, and also how the dynamics of their interiors change over time.” While Mars is a very cold and dry planet today, with an atmosphere just a fraction of Earth’s, things were much different billions of years ago after the Red Planet’s initial formation. During this time, active volcanoes replenished the atmosphere, and an active core produced a magnetic field that shielded the surface from harmful radiation, allowing liquid water to cascade across the surface. However, as the cored cooled, the magnetic field was lost and the volcanism ceased, resulting in the dead planet we see today. What new discoveries will scientists make about Mars and its formation and evolution 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: Nature, EurekAlert!, Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, University of Maryland, Wikipedia, Wikipedia (1)

Despite its resemblance to Earth, Mars, our planetary neighbor, is not exactly a friendly environment for human explorers. For example, its atmosphere has 96% carbon dioxide and only 0.13% oxygen. A team of researchers at Washington University in St. Louis, MO, reported that they developed a new chemistry module that would allow astronauts to turn salty water on the Martian surface into life-supporting oxygen as well as hydrogen fuel. To put its astronauts on the red planet in the 2030s, NASA would need a plan to supply them with fuel and air adequately. The already deployed Perseverance rover (ETA Feb. 18th, 2021) will be conducting the so-called Mars Oxygen ISRU Experiment or MOXIE. Mars 2020 Launched, Here's What You Need to Know MOXIE is a prototype machine that "breathes" like a tree, meaning converting water and carbon dioxide into pure oxygen. Besides oxygen generation, the car battery-size device can also produce up to 45 metric tons of liquid hydrogen once fully scaled up, which will be critical for fueling spacecraft launch off Mars. MOXIE is equipped with a traditional electrolyzer, which relies on electricity to break down deionized, pure water to hydrogen and oxygen. The Washington U team's design, called the perchlorate brine electrolyzers, takes a more efficient approach. (It's known that there's an active water cycle on Mars, with its groundwater containing a substantial amount of perchlorate salts.) The first-of-its-kind device can work on salted water without any purification, thanks to the ingenious incorporation of a lead ruthenate pyrochlore anode and a platinum mounted-carbon cathode into its design. While the MOXIE electrolyzer demonstrated impressive production efficiency, pumping out up to 10 g/hour of oxygen gas during a test on Earth, the new instrument can produce up to 250 g of oxygen gas, beating out NASA's by 25 times. The Washington U research group believes their design can better assist NASA to realize its mandate to land humans on Mars by 2033. By directly utilizing the briny water on the Martian surface, future astronauts can be more self-sufficient when producing oxygen supply, drinkable water, and hydrogen fuel. This ground-breaking research is reported in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Source: Universe Today

NASA has been exploring the unknown terrains of the red planet with robotic rovers for almost two decades. The first to land was the Pathfinder rover in 1997, and the most current is the Curiosity rover, which landed in 2012. NASA is now thinking ahead with even more modern technology, and is getting ready to prepare Rover 2020, an updated robotic rover that NASA wants to use to search the red planet for signs of life. Image Credit: NASA The rover’s nickname “Rover 2020” comes from the fact that NASA wants to launch the mission in Summer of 2020. The rover would take about a year to get to the red planet, and likely wouldn’t begin exploration until 2021. Rover 2020 will have a lot of the same design as Curiosity, mostly because NASA realizes that Curiosity has a very reliable design. "Since Mars 2020 is leveraging the design and some spare hardware from Curiosity, a significant amount of the mission's heritage components have already been built during Phases A and B," said George Tahu, Nasa Mars 2020 program executive. On the other hand, the instruments that measure the environmental aspects of the red planet, the cameras that film it, the communication equipment, and even the power equipment, will be all new and improved. One of the things that Rover 2020 will get that no other Mars rover had in the past is a microphone, which means that for the first time, we’ll get to see what certain things sound like on the red planet. Additionally, it will have other special abilities, like a better drill and ground-penetrating radar so we can see below Mars’ surface for additional signs of life. But no… that’s not all. NASA is also going to try and test a device that can produce oxygen, which will help us know whether or not future habitation of the red planet will be possible, and we’ll also be collecting soil samples and attempting to return them to Earth for the first time. NASA is currently racing to complete the rover on time. If they don’t reach the Summer 2020 launch window, there will be a delay of a couple of years. It should be very interesting to see what kind of information NASA can collect with their new rover in just a few more years. Source: NASA via Gizmodo

NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter recently completed a successful 54th flight, dubbed Flight 54, on the Martian surface on August 3, which comes after Flight 53 was unexpectedly shortened on July 22nd due to an anomaly. Flight 53 was scheduled to last 136 seconds but lasted only 74 seconds, and the recent Flight 54 was considered a short hop of 25 seconds to give the science and engineering teams insight into what caused the anomaly that led to the premature landing. Image of NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter taken on Aug. 2, 2023, the 871st Martian day, or sol, of the mission, one day before Ingenuity’s Flight 54. This image was produced from data gathered by the Mastcam-Z instrument on NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Arizona State University/Malin Space Science Systems) “Since the very first flight we have included a program called ‘LAND_NOW’ that was designed to put the helicopter on the surface as soon as possible if any one of a few dozen off-nominal scenarios was encountered,” said Teddy Tzanetos, who is a team lead emeritus for the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “During Flight 53, we encountered one of these, and the helicopter worked as planned and executed an immediate landing.” Image from NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter obtained from an altitude of approximately 16 feet (5 meters) during Flight 54 on Aug. 3, 2023, the 872nd Martian day, or sol, of the mission. A portion of NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover can be seen at the top right of center of the image. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech) Based on data from Flight 54, the team determined the premature landing occurred due to a sync mix-up between Ingenuity’s navigation camera image frames and data from Ingenuity’s inertial measurement unit (IMU), which is responsible for determining the craft’s position and speed. This was first experienced during Flight 6 when Ingenuity unexpectedly dropped several images causing exaggerated levels of pitching and rolling of the helicopter towards the end of the flight. After this incident, the team successfully updated the flight software to help alleviate similar incidents going forward pertaining to dropped images, and this fix proved successful until Flight 53. “While we hoped to never trigger a LAND_NOW, this flight is a valuable case study that will benefit future aircraft operating on other worlds,” said Tzanetos. “The team is working to better understand what occurred in Flight 53, and with Flight 54’s success we’re confident that our baby is ready to keep soaring ahead on Mars.” Arriving on Mars on February 18, 2021, and attached to the undercarriage of the Mars Perseverance rover, Ingenuity performed the first powered flight on another world on April 19, 2021. Each subsequent flight has accomplished a myriad of distances and flight times based on mission needs, with the goal of demonstrating that aerial scouting could be used on future Mars missions, including human missions, and other worlds, as well. While Ingenuity was initially built for a 30-day demonstration period, like most Mars missions it has greatly exceeded these expectations with its 54 powered flight on Mars and currently no end in sight. What new feats will Ingenuity accomplish during its time on the Red Planet going forward? Only time will tell, and this is why we science! As always, keep doing science & keep looking up! Sources: NASA JPL, NASA, NASA (1), NPR, NASA (2)

In October of last year, NASA expressed its interest in sending mankind to Mars to live there permanently, giving them the habitation tools necessary to survive on the red planet, which with its barren and lifeless surface, has recently been found to contain flowing water. Now SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is sure that the company will be able to send human beings to Mars by 2025, as he noted in an interview with InvestHK, saying “I don’t think that hard, honestly:" SpaceX is currently a part of commercial space program for NASA and creates rockets for helping to refuel the International Space Station; the company has also recently tried at two attempts to land a reusable Falcon 9 rocket back on Earth, with one attempt being successful and another being a failure. Reliability comes into question when suggesting they may one day carry humans to another planet. Musk notes that mankind landed on the Moon and it was very much so one of the greatest accomplishments of the 20th century. Now, in the 21st century, Musk is determined to make the next move up in the chain, suggesting Mars as the next target and saying that we need to spread our civilization across the solar system and beyond to protect our race from disasters. With the complications of doing a deep space mission like this that has never been done before, NASA is being required by the U.S. government to sketch up a Mars habitation prototype by 2018, which means before anything could possibly be done in the front of sending humans to Mars, NASA must first prove its feasibility by coming up with an approved functioning prototype. Because it's never been done before, this is raising a lot of stressful decisions for not only NASA and SpaceX, but also for the government, who has to approve such a mission. Clearly, safety is the number one thing on this future mission. There are plenty of things that can go wrong in launching a rocket full of people out of our atmosphere, and there is even more to go wrong when you send that rocket to another planet and expect it to land and expect those people to set up camp and build a habitation there. Nevertheless, NASA themselves would like to see humans on Mars by 2030-2040, so is Musk’s estimate of 2025 a feasible estimate? Only time will tell. Source: CNN Money