Even if there is water on Mars’s surface it may be too cold and salty for life as we know it to survive there – so there is no risk of contaminating Mars with Earth microbes Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2198191-water-on-mars-is-probably-too-cold-and-salty-for-life-as-we-know-it/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home
Tag: Mars
Watch for Venus at dawn, Mars at nightfall
In late March and early April 2019, the waning crescent moon will be sweeping past the brightest planet, Venus. From mid-northern latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere, the pair will be gracing your eastern sky an hour or so before sunrise. From the Southern Hemisphere, the view is much better, with Venus rising a few hours… Continue reading Watch for Venus at dawn, Mars at nightfall
NASA’s Mars helicopter completes flight tests
Since the Wright brothers first took to the skies of Kill Devil Hill, North Carolina, Dec. 17, 1903, first flights have been important milestones in the life of any vehicle designed for air travel. After all, it’s one thing to design an aircraft and make it fly on paper—or computer. It is quite another to put all the pieces together and watch them get off the ground.
New evidence of deep groundwater on Mars
In mid-2018, researchers supported by the Italian Space Agency detected the presence of a deep-water lake on Mars under its south polar ice caps. Now, researchers at the USC Arid Climate and Water Research Center (AWARE) have published a study that suggests deep groundwater could still be active on Mars and could originate surface streams in some near-equatorial areas on Mars.
Bringing Martian rocks back to Earth crucial for science, say researchers
Samples need to be collected from Mars’ surface and returned to Earth for examination to answer our most pressing questions about the red planet, according to a group of international scientists.
Can organisms survive on Mars, and can we identify them?
Earth is a very special planet. It is the only celestial body in the solar system on which we know life exists. Could there be life on other planets or moons? Mars is always the first mentioned in this context; it has many properties in common with Earth, and in its geological past water also flowed over its surface. Today, however, conditions on Mars are so extreme that it is hard to imagine that organisms like those found on Earth could survive on that cold and arid desert planet. One of the aims of the DLR-coordinated experiment BIOMEX (BIOlogy and Mars EXperiment) on the International Space Station (ISS) was to find out if this is indeed possible. The results are now available.
Transmit your sound recording from Mars to the Earth
An exciting new competition is giving citizens of planet Earth the opportunity to get their voices to Mars in the next phase of the ExoMars programme. The ExoMars rover and platform will launch to the Red Planet in 2020.
NASA proposes mission to Neptune moon Triton
Neptune’s largest moon Triton as seen by Voyager 2 during its flyby in 1989. The south polar cap – with its nitrogen geysers – is in the bottom portion of this image and Triton’s famous “cantaloupe terrain” is at the top. Image via NASA/JPL/USGS. Over the past few decades, robotic missions to the outer solar… Continue reading NASA proposes mission to Neptune moon Triton
Mars used to have massive flowing rivers twice as wide as Earth’s
Mars is now a freezing desert, but its surface once had flowing water and it turns out its rivers were wider than those on Earth Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2197973-mars-used-to-have-massive-flowing-rivers-twice-as-wide-as-earths/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home
Rivers raged on Mars late into its history
Long ago on Mars, water carved deep riverbeds into the planet’s surface—but we still don’t know what kind of weather fed them. Scientists aren’t sure, because their understanding of the Martian climate billions of years ago remains incomplete.
