Mars tagged posts

This map shows the frequency of carbon dioxide frost’s presence at sunrise on Mars, as a percentage of days year-round. Carbon dioxide ice more often covers the ground at night in some mid-latitude regions than in polar regions, where it is generally absent for much of summer and fall. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Some dusty parts of Mars get as cold at night year-round as the planet’s poles do in winter, even regions near the equator in summer, according to new NASA findings based on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter observations. The surface in these regions becomes so frigid overnight that an extremely thin layer of CO2 frost appears to form. The frost then vaporizes in the morning...

Two sizes of ripples are evident in this Dec. 13, 2015, view of a top of a Martian sand dune, from NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover. Sand dunes and the smaller type of ripples also exist on Earth. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Some of the wind-sculpted sand ripples on Mars are a type not seen on Earth, and their relationship to the thin Martian atmosphere today provides new clues about the atmosphere’s history. The determination that these mid-size ripples are a distinct type resulted from observations by NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover. 6 months ago, Curiosity made the first up-close study of active sand dunes anywhere other than Earth, at”Bagnold Dunes” on the NW flank of Mount Sharp.

“Earth and Mars both have big sand dunes and small sand ripples, but on Mars, there’s something in between that w...

MDRS Expedition 143 Commander Paul Knightly walking through stands of Ericameria nauseosa and Epehdra viridis while wearing a simulated spacesuit. Credit: Paul C. Sokoloff; CC-BY 4.0

Future Martian explorers might not need to leave the Earth to prepare themselves for life on the Red Planet. The Mars Society have built an analogue research site in Utah, USA, which simulates the conditions on our neighbouring planet. Practicing the methods needed to collect biological samples while wearing spacesuits, a team of Canadian scientists have studied the diverse local flora...

Google Earth, Cornell University, Planetary Space Institute Thermal image showing ice-rich lobes (outlined by yellow line), which we interpret to be the remnants of tsunami waves that transitioned into slurry ice-rich flows as they propagated under extremely cold climatic conditions. Upslope direction of flow indicated by white arrow. The lobe is about 250 km in length, or the distance between Baltimore and New York City. Credit: Image courtesy of Cornell University; This view was produced using Google Earth

The geologic shape of what were once shorelines through Mars’ northern plains convinces scientists that 2 large meteorites – hitting the planet millions of years apart – triggered a pair of mega-tsunamis...