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Mars

New Release: Devon Island Mars Colony Bundle – SI Clarke

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Devon Island Mars Colony Complete Series - SI Clarke

QSFer SI Clarke has a new queer sci-fi box set out: Devon Island Mars Colony. Bringing together two novels and two short stories, this is a work of neurodiverse, culturally diverse, gender-bendy, socio-politico-economic, drunken-arguments-in-the-pub science fiction – not bang-bang-pew-pew science fiction. DEVON’S ISLAND (BOOK #1): PLANNING THE FIRST PERMANENT MARS COLONY Before we can build a colony on Mars, someone has to decide how it’s going to work. With 160 slots to fill with experts from all over the world, Gurdeep and Georgie set about designing an all-new society with its own government, economy, and culture – and that’s just … Read more

Review: The Third Front – E.M. Hamill

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Third Front - E.M. Hamill

Genre: Sci-Fi LGBTQ+ Category: Non binary, gender fluid, pansexual, gay Reviewer: Scott Get It On Amazon About The Book Dalí Tamareia has the terrorist Skadi in their sights – but bringing her in may cost them everything. Dalí’s role as an undercover operative is compromised, putting a target on their back and threatening the close-knit team aboard Thunder Child. A new lead on Miriam Skadi’s activities forces them back to Luna, where they must confront everything they tried to run from…including their changed relationship with Rion Sumner, who insists on backing up Dalí for this investigation. But Dalí is not … Read more

New Release / Giveaway: Third Front – E.M. Hamill

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Third Front - E.M. Hamill

E.M. Hamill has a new queer space opera out (non-binary, gender fluid, pansexual, gay), The Dalí Tamareia Missions book 3: Third Front. And there’s a giveaway. Dalí Tamareia has the terrorist Skadi in their sights – but bringing her in may cost them everything. Dalí’s role as an undercover operative is compromised, putting a target on their back and threatening the close-knit team aboard Thunder Child. A new lead on Miriam Skadi’s activities forces them back to Luna, where they must confront everything they tried to run from…including their changed relationship with Rion Sumner, who insists on backing up Dalí … Read more

New Release: The Heartbeat of a Million Dreams – Halo Scot

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The Heartbeat of a Million Dreams - Halo Scot

QSFer Halo Scot has a new lesbian sci-fi romance out (bi, gay, lesbian, neurodivergent): The Heartbeat of a Million Dreams. You are the voice for those who have none.You are the heartbeat of a million dreams. Mars has a shadow, a mirror world torn from the chaos of an eons-old rivalry between gods and titans. An elite few protect this secret to preserve the peace. But when a girl comes along with the power to reunite Mars, worlds collide in cosmic war. Slade Hawk is a monster. That’s what they tell her, at least. Hunted since birth, she’s lived her … Read more

SPACE: What Does the Inside of Mars Look Like?

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Mars Core

Like a bruised peach sliced apart to reveal an enormous yellow pit, Mars shares its inner mysteries in the first-ever map of an alien planet’s interior — released as part of three new studies published July 22 in the journal Science. This premiere look at the Martian interior is the culmination of two years of research (and decades of planning) with NASA’s InSight lander — a stationary science robot deployed to Mars in 2018 with the sole mission of studying the Red Planet’s unseen innards. About a month after landing on the flat, smooth plain known as Elysium Planitia, InSight … Read more

SPACE: Could We really terraform Mars?

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Mars - NASA

Almost every sci-fi story begins (and sometimes ends) with the terraforming of Mars to turn it into a more hospitable world. But with its frigid temperatures, remoteness from the sun and general dustiness, changing Mars to be more Earth-like is more challenging than it seems (and it already seems pretty tough). The thing is, Mars used to be cool. And by cool, I mean warm. Billions of years ago, Mars had a thick, carbon-rich atmosphere, lakes and oceans of liquid water, and probably even white fluffy clouds. And this was at a time when our sun was smaller and weaker, … Read more

A history of Martian illusions – Live Science

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Mars

Humans have been seeing strange things on the surface of Mars for centuries. Perhaps it’s because, other than Earth, Mars is the closest thing in the solar system to a habitable planet, or perhaps it’s simply because it’s close enough to get a pretty good look at. Either way, Earthlings have been fooled time and again by the rocky Martian surface and their own psychology. People have at various times reported finding everything from canals to spooky humanoid faces to alien Martian bases on the surface of the Red Planet — though each sighting has been thoroughly debunked. In this … Read more

SPACE: Are Buried Martian “Lakes” Just Frozen Clay?

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Mars

Bright reflections that radar detected beneath the south pole of Mars may not be underground lakes as previously thought but deposits of clay instead, a new study finds. For decades, scientists have suspected that water lurks below the polar ice caps of Mars, just as it does here on Earth. In 2018, researchers using the MARSIS radar sounder instrument on the European Space Agency’s Mars Express spacecraft detected evidence for a lake hidden beneath the Red Planet’s south polar ice cap, and in 2020, they found signs of a number of super-salty lakes there. If these lakes were remnants of … Read more

REVIEW: Livid Skies – SI Clarke

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REVIEW: Livid Skies - SI Clarke

Genre: Sci-Fi LGBTQ+ Category: Trans, Lesbian, Non-Binary, Gay, Bisexual, Poly Reviewer: Scott Get It On Amazon About The Book A fresh start, a queer social liberal dream, and a planet that wants to kill you. Noble aspirations are easier said than done, though – especially when the entire planet wants to kill you. Grappling with the realities of human nature and with their batteries slowly dying, the colony’s 150 women and 10 men must overcome their differences to create a lasting community. But things aren’t always what they seem and maybe the colonists aren’t as alone as they thought… Perfect … Read more

SPACE: Did Mars Rover Curiosity Just Detect an Alien Belch?

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Curiosity Rover - NASA

A group of scientists may have just pinpointed the location on Mars of a mysterious source of methane, a gas most often produced by microbes — and NASA’s Curiosity rover could be right on top of it. Methane blips have pinged on Curiosity’s detection systems six times since the rover landed in Mars’ Gale crater in 2012, but scientists weren’t able to find a source for them. Now, with a new analysis, researchers may have traced the methane burps to their origin. To calculate the unknown methane source, researchers at the California Institute of Technology modeled the methane gas particles by … Read more