MARS - SKY NIGHTLY

Six emerge from 8-mo Mars experiment in Hawaii dome

Sep 19, 2017 (AFP)

The experiment, run by the University of Hawaii, was the fifth of its kind aimed at helping scientists iron out the fights and inter-personal conflicts that are...

Ice mined on Mars could provide water for humans exploring space

Sep 19, 2017 (The Conversation)

Access to such resources remains important as the economy moves into space. Here, water has emerged as the pre-eminent resource to exploit first. The question t...

Splashdown! Crashing into Martian mud

Sep 19, 2017 (ESA)

During an impact, the energy transferred to the ground goes into melting and vapourising the impactor and parts of the surface, as well as excavating vast amoun...

New Gravity Map Suggests Mars Has a Porous Crust

Sep 14, 2017 (SPX)

"The crust is the end-result of everything that happened during a planet's history, so a lower density could have important implications about Mars' formation a...

NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover Climbing Toward Ridge Top

Sep 14, 2017 (JPL)

"Vera Rubin Ridge" stands prominently on the northwestern flank of Mount Sharp, resisting erosion better than the less-steep portions of the mountain below and ...

45 Kilometers on the Odometry for Opportunity

Sep 12, 2017 (JPL)

Winter is constraining the available energy, so the project has the rover doing "hops" (drives) from one energy-favorable "lily pad" to the next. (These lily pa...

New tools for exploring the surface of Mars

Sep 12, 2017 (ESA)

Among the many different targets for investigation in our Solar System, Mars is a special case due to the sheer volume of data we have collected from the numero...

Discovery of boron on Mars adds to evidence for habitability

Sep 07, 2017 (SPX)

"Because borates may play an important role in making RNA - one of the building blocks of life - finding boron on Mars further opens the possibility that life c...

Life on Mars: Let's Try Oman Desert First for Space Mission

Sep 05, 2017 (Sputnik)

According to scientists, the Dhofar desert is possibly the most realistic place on Earth that is as harsh and uninviting as the landscape of Mars. The astronaut...

Opportunity seeks energy-favorable locations to recharge during winter

Sep 01, 2017 (JPL)

Winter substainally constrains the energy levels of the rover, such that the program has been exercising the strategy of driving the rover from one energy-favor...

New mini tool has massive implications

Aug 31, 2017 (SPX)

For decades mass spectrometers have offered a relatively fast and highly sensitive way to analyze and detect chemical compounds. But their bulky size has been a...

Citizen scientists spot Martian 'spiders' in unexpected places

Aug 30, 2017 (UPI)

These 'spiders' aren't eight-legged arachnids. They're unique geologic formations. And it turns out, the spider web-like networks of cracks on Mars surface are ...

NASA's Next Mars Mission to Investigate Interior of Red Planet

Aug 29, 2017 (JPL)

Lockheed Martin Space Systems is assembling and testing the InSight spacecraft in a clean room facility near Denver. "Our team resumed system-level integration ...

Big dishes band together

Aug 28, 2017 (ESA)

For the first time ever, deep-space ground stations from ESA, NASA and Russia's Roscosmos joined together, on 13 August, to receive ultra-faint signals from ESA...

Opportunity staying put for a bit to image valley

Aug 28, 2017 (JPL)

The rover has been staying in place collecting extensive Panoramic Camera (Pancam) stereo panoramas. Now that we are in the valley, the objective is to extensiv...

The Moving Martian Bow Shock

Aug 23, 2017 (ESA)

cientists have long been aware that a feature known as a bow shock forms upstream of a planet - rather like the bow of a ship, where the water is slowed and the...

Mars 2020 mission to use smart methods to seek signs of past life

Aug 21, 2017 (SPX)

Speaking at the Goldschmidt conference in Paris where he is presenting the methods to be adopted, Dr Ken Williford (who is also Director of the Jet Propulsion L...

Mars weather: 'Cloudy, chance of nighttime snowstorm'

Aug 21, 2017 (AFP)

Up to now, it was thought that snow falling from low-lying Martian clouds settled slowly and sparsely to the ground in a environment bereft of violent winds. Th...

Preserving the stress of volcanic uprise on Mars

Aug 14, 2017 (ESA)

The images, taken on 9 April by the high-resolution stereo camera on ESA's Mars Express, show the Thaumasia mountains and Coracis Fossae, which fringe the huge ...

Opportunity takes in the panoramic view while crossing some rocky terrain

Aug 14, 2017 (JPL)

Taking advantage of the position through conjunction, on Sol 4809 (August 3, 2017) the rover began two sols of robotic arm activity collecting a set of Microsco...