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Mars

SPACE: China’s Rover Successfully Lands on Mars

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Chinese Mars Rover

China just successfully landed its first rover on Mars, becoming only the second nation to do so. The Tianwen-1 mission, China’s first interplanetary endeavor, reached the surface of the Red Planet Friday (May 14) at approximately 7:11 p.m. EDT (2311 GMT), though Chinese space officials have not yet confirmed the exact time and location of touchdown. Tianwen-1 (which translates to “Heavenly Questions”) arrived in Mars’ orbit in February after launching to the Red Planet on a Long March 5 rocket in July 2020. After circling the Red Planet for more than three months, the Tianwen-1 lander, with the rover attached, … Read more

SOLAR SYSTEM: Oh the Weather Outside is Frightful…

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Mars dust storm - NASA/JPL

Our solar system is home to some weird and wonderful weather, with storms more terrifying in scale than anything in Earth’s recorded history. From centuries-old hurricanes on Jupiter to immense winds on Neptune, if you leave Earth you’ll be shocked by what you find. On Mars you will find immense dust storms that cover the entire planet, while Venus has an incredibly thick and fast-moving atmosphere that can form permanent vortices at its poles. On Jupiter and Saturn there are some huge storms — bigger than the diameter of multiple Earths — that have raged for decades or even centuries. … Read more

MARS: NASA Extracts Breathable Oxygen From Thin Martian Air

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Mars

NASA has logged another extraterrestrial first on its latest mission to Mars: converting carbon dioxide from the Martian atmosphere into pure, breathable oxygen, the U.S. space agency said on Wednesday. The unprecedented extraction of oxygen, literally out of thin air on Mars, was achieved Tuesday by an experimental device aboard Perseverance, a six-wheeled science rover that landed on the Red Planet Feb. 18 after a seven-month journey from Earth. In its first activation, the toaster-sized instrument dubbed MOXIE, short for Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment, produced about 5 grams of oxygen, equivalent to roughly 10 minutes’ worth of breathing … Read more

MARS: Ingenuity Takes Its Maiden Flight

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Ingenuity

The aerial exploration of Mars has begun. NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter lifted off on the Red Planet early this morning (April 19), performing the first-ever powered flight on a world beyond Earth. The 4-lb. (1.8 kilograms) chopper was scheduled to rise from the floor of Mars’ Jezero Crater at 12:31 a.m. EDT (0431 GMT) today, get a maximum of 10 feet (3 meters) above the red dirt and land after roughly 40 seconds aloft. At about 6:15 a.m. EDT (1015 GMT), data came down from Ingenuity — via its much larger partner, NASA’s Perseverance rover — that the little rotorcraft had … Read more

SPACE: Mars Odyssey Snaps Beautiful Color-Enhanced Photo of North Pole

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Mars North Pole - NASA

NASA astronomers just shared a colorful new view of Mars that proves the Red Planet also looks great in blue. Using a special infrared camera aboard the Mars Odyssey orbiter, which has been soaring over the Red Planet since 2001, researchers snapped a thermal image of the Martian north pole, digitally colored to highlight the wide-ranging temperatures there. Areas tinted in blue represent colder regions, while warmer areas are tinted in yellow and orange, according to a NASA statement. In this image — which covers an area of the pole about 19 miles (30 kilometers) wide — vast sand dunes … Read more

SPACE: There’s a Green Rock on Mars

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Green Rock on Mars - NASA

Perseverance’s laser hasn’t yet penetrated the mystery of a strange Martian rock near the rover’s new digs. NASA’s rover is waiting for its companion, the Ingenuity helicopter, to make the first-ever powered flight on another planet. Meanwhile, its instruments targeted a greenish-looking rock on the Red Planet’s surface that has the science team “trading lots of hypotheses,” according to the rover’s Twitter feed — but please don’t pick aliens as one of them. “Is it something weathered out of the local bedrock?,” a tweet the account posted on Wednesday (March 31) wondered. “Is it a piece of Mars plopped into … Read more

Just In From Mars – The First Color Photo

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Mars color photo - NASA

OK, so it’s just dirt. But still…: NASA’s little Mars helicopter has opened its eyes on the Red Planet. The 4-lb. (1.8 kilograms) chopper, known as Ingenuity, snapped its first color photograph on Saturday (April 3), shortly after being lowered to the Martian dirt by the Perseverance rover. The tableau shows “the floor of Mars’ Jezero Crater and a portion of two wheels of NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover,” agency officials wrote in a description on Monday (April 5), when the photo was released. Full Story From Live Science

Martian Polar “Spiders” Finally Explained

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Martian Polar "Spiders - NASA

Ziggy played guitar, and scientists in the U.K. played with a big chunk of dry ice to try to figure out what’s behind the strange alien patterns known as the “spiders on Mars.” Those patterns, visible in satellite images of the Red Planet’s south pole, aren’t real spiders, of course; but the branching, black shapes carved into the Martian surface look creepy enough that researchers dubbed them “araneiforms” (meaning “spider-like”) after discovering the shapes more than two decades ago. Measuring up to 3,300 feet (1 kilometer) across, the gargantuan shapes don’t resemble anything on Earth. But in a new study … Read more

Mars: Curiosity Rover Snaps a Selfie

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Curiosity Rovver selfie - NASA

NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity recently posed for a selfie in front of a beautiful Martian rock outcrop called “Mont Mercou,” after probing the area for clues about the Red Planet’s past. Curiosity landed inside Mars’ 96-mile-wide (154 kilometers) Gale Crater in August 2012 with a primary goal to find out if the planet is, or was, suitable for life. Earlier in March, the rover arrived at a scenic rock formation as it traversed the slopes of Mount Sharp — a 3-mile-tall (5 km) mountain located at the center of Gale Crater, which Curiosity has been climbing since September 2014. This … Read more

Lava tubes in Hawaii could be a dress rehearsal for Lunar/Martian colonies

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Thurston Lava Tube - Deposit Photos

When humans build the first bases and habitats on other worlds, they’ll confront dangers and challenges unlike any faced by the astronauts who went before them. To prepare for such challenges, scientists are descending deep underground into lava tubes in Hawaii that simulate conditions on rocky alien worlds. There, mission crew members navigate uneven volcanic terrain and endure the physical constraints of performing research in a hostile environment. Wearing bulky suits like those required for extraterrestrial exploration, the scientists study the geology and organisms found in lava tunnels and caverns at Hawaii’s Mauna Loa volcano. This unique research station at … Read more