NASA highlights the changing Martian environment Curiosity is exploring

It may be a surprise to learn that NASA’s Curiosity rover has been exploring the Red Planet for nine years. Over the years, as the rover has been exploring Mars, it has encountered a vastly changing landscape. Curiosity is currently exploring Mount Sharp, a mountain standing five miles high inside the Gale Crater basin. Curiosity’s Mast Camera took the image … Continue reading

Source: https://www.slashgear.com/nasa-highlights-the-changing-martian-environment-curiosity-is-exploring-18687440/
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The Article Was Written/Published By: Shane McGlaun

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China shares video and audio from its Mars rover

China has shared video footageand audio from its Mars rover Zhurong, giving another look at what it’s like to explore the Red Planet.

Source: https://www.engadget.com/china-zhurong-mars-rover-video-sound-173845448.html?src=rss_b2c
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New study offers clues about how Mars lost its water

Mars is known for its thin atmosphere, where CO2 dominates and provides most of the atmospheric mass and pressure. In fact, the pressure is similar to that in the Earth’s stratosphere, which is a layer of the atmosphere, at more than 30km above the surface. But what about water? Water on Mars is currently found on the surface as a layer of ice – several kilometers thick – at the north pole. It also appears as seasonal frost at the coldest times of the year, and in the atmosphere as vapor and ice. Nevertheless, the Martian atmosphere is extremely dry…

This story continues at The Next Web

Source: https://thenextweb.com/news/new-study-clues-mars-lost-water-syndication
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The Article Was Written/Published By: The Conversation

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NASA’s Ingenuity Helicopter Nails Its Seventh Flight on Mars

The seventh flight of NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter on Mars saw the vehicle fly nearly 350 feet to a landing spot that hadn’t been closely surveyed beforehand.

Read more…

Source: https://gizmodo.com/nasa-s-ingenuity-helicopter-nails-its-seventh-flight-on-1847061899
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The Article Was Written/Published By: George Dvorsky

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China’s Mars rover rolls off landing platform, joining US robots patrolling Red Planet

The rover Zhurong, which successfully landed on Mars last week, departed its landing module and rolled onto the surface of the planet. China is the second nation after the US to achieve this.

The start of the new phase of the Tianwen-1 mission was reported on Saturday by the China National Space Administration (CNSA). The telemetry data indicates that the Zhurong rover’s wheels touched Martian soil at 10:40am Beijing Time (2:40am GMT), the space agency said.

The Zhurong rover descended from the landing platform today at 02:40 UTC (May 22). Awaiting images. https://t.co/TyuXp2oevI pic.twitter.com/MTiYBvaZXQ

— Andrew Jones (@AJ_FI) May 22, 2021

The mission, which was launched in July 2020, includes an orbiter, lander, and rover. The ground vehicles touched down in Utopia Planitia, a vast 3,300km (2,050 mile) diameter impact basin, on May 15. The CNSA released the first surface images captured by the robotic explorer on Wednesday.

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China releases first photos from Mars rover Zhurong as it successfully lands on red planet (PHOTOS)

The Chinese rover is relatively small, measuring around 1.8 meters (6ft) tall and weighing 240 kilograms (530lb). It carries six scientific instruments and will study the planet’s surface soil and atmosphere.

Tianwen-1 was one of three missions that reached the Red Planet in February, having used the same launch window. US rover Perseverance landed in Jezero Crater in mid-February, while UAE’s Al-Amal mission will remain in orbit, studying Mars’ atmosphere remotely.

Another NASA Mars rover operation is Curiosity, which landed in 2012. The US stationary surface mission InSight remains active as well, more than two years after its landing in November 2018.

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Source: https://www.rt.com/news/524522-chinese-rover-rolls-platform/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS
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Chinese Mars rover returns first pictures

Imagery comes back from the six-wheeled robot that landed successfully at the weekend.

Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57172346
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China makes history with successful Mars landing

A Chinese lander carrying a rover successfully touched down on Mars for the first time, state media reports.

Why it matters: This is the first time China has landed a spacecraft on another planet, and it launches the nation into an elite club of only a few space agencies to successfully make it to the Martian surface.

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What’s happening: The rover arrived in orbit around the Red Planet in February with the country’s Tianwen-1 mission.

• The rover is reportedly designed to search for water, ice and possible signs of life.
• This was China’s first attempt to land on Mars.

The big picture: This mission fits into China’s broader plans in space.

• The nation is currently building a space station and is aiming to develop a research station on the Moon with Russia.

Source: https://www.axios.com/china-mars-rover-landing-0c0550d8-b2fc-4ce5-810e-01153ff29376.html
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The Article Was Written/Published By: Miriam Kramer

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Mars helicopter had successful first flight!

Ingenuity—the small helicopter delivered to Mars by the Perseverance rover—has successfully taken its first flight on the Red Planet! he distance between Earth and Mars means that lagtime precludes real-time remote control, the helicopter flies autonomously. The image above captured by Ingenuity shows its shadow on the surface. — Read the rest

Source: https://boingboing.net/2021/04/19/mars-helicopter-had-successful-first-flight.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=mars-helicopter-had-successful-first-flight
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The Article Was Written/Published By: David Pescovitz

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NASA’s Ingenuity team has a software solution to fix the helicopter

Not long ago, we mentioned that NASA ran into a problem when it began to run a test of the Ingenuity Helicopter on the surface of Mars. On April 9, mission controllers were performing a planned high-speed spin-up test of the helicopter’s rotors. During that test, an issue arose, and NASA previously announced the test flight was delayed until at … Continue reading

Source: https://www.slashgear.com/nasas-ingenuity-team-has-a-software-solution-to-fix-the-helicopter-13668128/
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The Article Was Written/Published By: Shane McGlaun

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NASA Curiosity Mars rover snaps pictures at Mont Mercou

NASA has multiple rovers and spacecraft on and around Mars, searching for signs of past life, water, and performing various science experiments. One of the rovers is the NASA Curiosity Mars rover, and it recently approached a rock formation that scientists call “Mont Mercou.” That nickname was taken from a mountain in France. The Martian Mont Mercou is a rock … Continue reading

Source: https://www.slashgear.com/nasa-curiosity-mars-rover-snaps-pictures-at-mont-mercou-31666365/
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The enduring questions about Mars are starting to be answered

The rovers and orbiters studying Mars are being tasked with answering the persistent questions that remain about the Red Planet, decades after NASA sent its first missions to the world.

Why it matters: New spacecraft recently sent to Mars will help NASA and other space agencies fill in gaps in knowledge, moving them ever-closer to finding out whether the world once played host to life.

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• But answering questions about Mars’ past and its potential for life will likely take more spacecraft, and possibly even human missions to solve.

Driving the news: A study published this month suggests much of Mars’ water may have been absorbed into the ground, not lost to space, as scientists have thought for decades.

• Thanks to this new study, scientists have been able to start to square the planet’s geology with what they know of how its atmosphere was lost, painting a clearer picture of why the world is now the barren one we see today.

Yes, but: Not all questions about Mars can be quickly answered with current data.

• Perhaps the most pressing question has stood for centuries: Has life ever existed on the Red Planet?
• NASA is just scratching the surface of answering that question using its Perseverance rover — the first mission dedicated to hunting for past Martian life — which made it to Mars in February.
• Even that rover likely won’t be able to find signs of life on its own, however. Perseverance is expected to cache samples for a return to Earth on a future mission that will allow scientists to use high-powered tools to analyze the samples.

The big questions: Although scientists know Mars was once habitable — at least for microbial life — it’s still not clear that the environment could have supported diverse and abundant life as we see on Earth.

• While the planet did have lakes and rivers, researchers don’t know exactly how warm the planet was.
• “There are a lot of basic things we still don’t know, like how warm or how wet was ancient Mars? Was it a cold, icy barren world or was it this warmer, wetter … warm desert planet?” Purdue University planetary scientist Briony Horgan told me.

Rovers on the planet have also found the world is scattered with layered rocks, but no one is quite sure how they formed.

• Scientists’ best guess at the moment is these layers formed through erosion, wind, water and ice. But we don’t see rock layers like this on Earth because they’re destroyed by plate tectonics, which don’t exist on Mars, Horgan added.

The intrigue: Sending rovers and landers to Mars has actually complicated scientists’ understanding of the Red Planet.

• “When you only have one data point, it’s easy to make a model that fits that one data point, but when you have 50 data points, it’s a lot harder to find the right model to fit those data,” NASA Mars researcher Abigail Fraeman told me.

What’s next: Human missions to the Red Planet could one day help resolve these mismatches between data beamed back from spacecraft in orbit and rover-collected data from the ground.

• Having people on Mars would allow scientists to easily move to other parts of the planet to search for interesting rocks without the planning and guesswork that goes into a rover’s roadmap, experts say.

Source: https://www.axios.com/mars-life-habitability-questions-05ba5552-54c3-4fe5-8d4f-e2a6788d748c.html
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The Article Was Written/Published By: Miriam Kramer

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Small piece of Wright brothers plane will take flight on Mars

NASA’s Martian chopper, named Ingenuity, will take flight on the red planet some time in April, and attached to the helicopter is a fabric swatch from aeronautical history. A piece of muslin from the Wright brothers’ first airplane has made the trip to Mars and will be part of the first helicopter ride there. — Read the rest

Source: https://boingboing.net/2021/03/24/small-piece-of-wright-brothers-plane-will-take-flight-on-mars.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=small-piece-of-wright-brothers-plane-will-take-flight-on-mars
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The Article Was Written/Published By: Kevin Reome

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What to know before Perseverance lands on Mars

NASA’s fifth Mars rover Perseverance launched in July of 2020, and is scheduled to land on Mars on Thursday, February 18th. The purpose of the rover is to look for signs of previous life on the red planet. You can follow along with NASA’s streaming coverage beginning at 2:15 PM Eastern time, which will be as “live” as possible. — Read the rest

Source: https://boingboing.net/2021/02/11/what-to-know-before-perseverance-lands-on-mars.html
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The Article Was Written/Published By: Miss Cellania

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Mars triple feature: Spacecraft from UAE, China and U.S. to arrive at the red planet this month

The flurry of activity begins Tuesday, as the United Arab Emirates’ Hope probe prepares to enter into orbit around Mars.

Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/mars-set-visits-uae-china-u-s-spacecraft-n1257126
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NASA Perseverance Rover will experience a violent seven-minute descent to Mars

One of the most challenging parts of putting any rover on the surface of Mars is the approximately seven-minute-long descent from orbit to the surface of the Red Planet. NASA is gearing up for the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover to land on Mars about 20 days from now. Currently, Perseverance has about 23.9 million miles left on its 292.5 million … Continue reading

Source: https://www.slashgear.com/nasa-perseverance-rover-will-experience-a-violent-seven-minute-descent-to-mars-30657433/
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Geology at the Martian equator suggests a massive flood in the distant past

Researchers have been looking at the field geology on the equator of Mars and found that it suggests an ancient flood of an unimaginable magnitude washed through Gale Crater on the Martian equator about 4 billion years ago. The finding suggests that there is a possibility life may have existed around Gale Crater billions of years ago. The new finding … Continue reading

Source: https://www.slashgear.com/geology-at-the-martian-equator-suggests-a-massive-flood-in-the-distant-past-24648625/
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New artificial intelligence spots previously undiscovered craters on Mars

The AI can cut the time taken to detect a crater from 40 minutes to five seconds

Source: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/artificial-intelligence-mars-craters-nasa-b1341139.html
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Scientists find evidence of multiple underground lakes on Mars

Scientists believe they’ve found more evidence confirming the presence of a large reservoir of liquid water under the surface of Mars first discovered back in 2018. In fact, they believe they’ve found three more subsurface saltwater lakes surrounding…

Source: https://www.engadget.com/scientists-underground-lakes-mars-092555621.html
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Mars and the Moon have lava tubes big enough to host planetary bases

Scientists and visionaries around the world foresee a future where mankind colonizes the moon and Mars. One major question that has to be answered before colonization can happen is how to create structures that humans can live inside and be protected from the radiation and lack of habitable atmosphere in both locations. Researchers from the universities of Bologna and Padua … Continue reading

Source: https://www.slashgear.com/mars-and-the-moon-have-lava-tubes-big-enough-to-host-planetary-bases-17633698/
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The Article Was Written/Published By: Shane McGlaun

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Nuclear power plants could power colonies on the Moon and Mars

One of the challenges of prolonged presence on the moon or the surface of another planet, such as Mars, is finding the power needed to make human life possible. NASA is reportedly considering building nuclear power plants that will work on the moon and Mars. On Friday, NASA put out a request for ideas from the private sector on how … Continue reading

Source: https://www.slashgear.com/nuclear-power-plants-could-power-colonies-on-the-moon-and-mars-26630647/
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The Article Was Written/Published By: Shane McGlaun

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