Tagged: Mars

One key aspect of NASA’s InSight mission on Mars sadly came to an end last week. NASA announced that InSight’s HP3 heat probe – aka the mole – hasn’t been able to gain the friction it needs to dig as deeply as planned into Mars’...

Just as on Earth, glaciers have flowed across the surface of Mars in the distant past. But while Earth’s glaciers have mostly receded (and are still shrinking), Mars’ glaciers are frozen in place and covered by rocky debris. Scientists haven’t been sure if there was...

A new study suggests that Mars’ larger moon Phobos orbits through a stream of charged particles flowing off the planet’s atmosphere. The findings, published February 1, 2021, in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Geoscience, suggest that the ions of oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, and argon charged particles...

  Tianwen-1, China’s Mars mission, entered its orbit around Mars after a 15 minute long burn February 10, 2021 at 12:03:30 UTC (06:03:30 CST). This was a mere one day after the United Arab Emirates Mars mission, called Hope, successfully entered orbit around the red...

For years now, scientists have been trying to figure out what causes weird dark streaks on Martian slopes called recurring slope lineae. They tend to be found on sun-facing slopes and keep repeating in the same places, hence the word “recurring” in the name. Different...

On February 18, 2021, the Perseverance rover – formerly called Mars 2020 – became the first artificial object to land on Mars since the Insight Mars lander in 2018. It was the first rover to land since Curiosity touched down in 2012. Perseverance is the...

The team behind NASA’s InSight Mars lander has come up with an innovative way to boost the spacecraft’s energy at a time when its power levels have been falling. The lander’s robotic arm trickled sand near one solar panel, helping the wind to carry off...

From Northern Hemisphere locations, in the weeks and months around the equinox, you can look west each evening after true darkness falls toward a mysterious hazy pyramid of light. It’s called the zodiacal light, and you can see it from the Southern Hemisphere, too; from...

Scientists announced on March 9, 2021, that they’ve unraveled the mystery of what creates a regularly occurring, long, thin cloud seen to stream away from the now-extinct Martian volcano named Arsia Mons. The cloud formation – which occurs seasonally – appears to be produced by...

It’s been a month since NASA’s Perseverance rover landed on Mars on February 18, 2021. After initial testing of various components and systems, the rover has started traveling across the ancient lakebed in Jezero Crater. NASA said on March 10 that its first science results...