NASA launched the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in August 2005 and the following year, on March 10, it entered the orbit of the red planet where it continues to operate today. Data returned to Earth by the MRO has revealed Mars in unprecedented detail an…
NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) captures a detailed view of a relatively fresh crater in this image released on June 3, 2015. The crater has a sharp rim and well-preserved ejecta. The steep inner slopes are carved by gullies and include possible recurring slope lineae on the equator-facing slopes. This crater is monitored for changes […]
The ESA’s Mars Express and ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter spacecraft watched as a superstorm that ravaged Earth also struck the Red Planet.
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Newly released Mars images offer a detailed look at one of the Red Planet’s oldest, most heavily cratered regions, a landscape shaped by billions of years of impacts, volcanism and erosion.
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By fertilizing inorganic regolith with organic human waste that has been processed through bioreactors, future astronauts living on Mars could be able to create their own organic soil.
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Mars is not what it used to be. Once warm, watery, and blanketed by a thick atmosphere, today the Red Planet is cold, dry, and draped by a thin atmospheric veil. The main culprit is a relentless stream of particles from the Sun, known as the solar wind. Over billions of years, the solar wind has stripped away […]
For about six months, NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has been exploring a region full of geologic formations called boxwork, low ridges standing roughly 3 to 6 feet (1 to 2 meters) tall with sandy hollows in between. Crisscrossing the surface for miles, the formations suggest ancient groundwater flowed on this part of the Red Planet […]
There is no GPS at the Red Planet, but a new technology called Mars Global Localization lets Perseverance determine precisely where it is — without human help. Imagine you’re all alone, driving along in a rocky, unforgiving desert with no roads, no map, no GPS, and no more than one phone call a day for someone to inform you exactly where you are. That’s what NASA’s Perseverance rover has been experiencing since landing on Mars five years ago. Though it carries time-tested tools for determining its general location, the rover has needed operators on Earth to tell it precisely where it is — until now. A new […]
In December, NASA took another small, incremental step towards autonomous surface rovers. In a demonstration, the Perseverance team used AI to generate the rover’s waypoints. Perseverance used the AI waypoints on two separate days, traveling a total o…
Perchlorate, a toxic substance found in Mars dirt, could help the bacterium Sporosarcina pasteurii strengthen bonds between particles of regolith.
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