NASA MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) mission scientists have uncovered a key puzzle piece in understanding certain types of auroras on Mars, finding that they form in a similar way to Earth-based auroras. Results published Thursday in Nature Communications show the same mechanism that circulates and catapults charged particles into Earth’s atmosphere is happening at […]
What might seem like a simple black-and-white picture of some rocks is actually the first photograph ever taken on the surface of Mars.
“We didn’t anticipate big discoveries, given how extensively the planet has been studied, but we did complement Mars science with the data we collected through Psyche’s unique perspective.”
Background Human exploration of Mars will expose crews to a persistent, fine particulate environment whose physicochemical properties and health implications remain only partly understood. Because no samples of authentic Martian airborne dust have been returned to Earth, NASA must rely on lunar dust toxicology, Martian regolith simulants, and extensive rover/lander geochemical and mineralogical datasets to […]
NASA’s Viking 1 mission blazed a crucial trail with its Mars landing on July 20, 1976. Now, half a century later, that trail leads up into the Red Planet’s skies.
Remnants from Martian history stay scattered across the planet’s surface.
Did Viking 1 find evidence of life on Mars? Fifty years after the NASA lander touched down, the jury is still out.
New images from the European Space Agency’s Mars Express orbiter have captured strange-looking waves on the Red Planet.
NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has uncovered evidence that a 245-foot-thick (75-meter-thick) stack of ancient rock on the rim of Jezero Crater was built by repeated asteroid impacts. Referred to as the “Broom Point member” by the rover’s science team, this sequence of layered bedrock is likely more than 3.9 billion years old, making it among […]
What could we be looking at?