Exploration of Mars

NASA is setting up an independent review board to oversee the Mars Sample Return mission plans, in an effort to make sure the mission will be completed on time and—crucially—under budget.Astronomers Could Soon Get Warnings When SpaceX Satellites Threaten Their ViewThe mission—set to be completed in 2033—entails picking up Martian rock samples collected by the Perseverance rover and bringing them to Earth. Should the mission be pulled off, they will be the first samples ever brought to Earth from another world, and in the…

NASA has released an interactive map of Mars made from over 100,000 images taken by the agency’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter; the mosaic is the highest-resolution global portrait of Mars ever made.What Was Your First Experience with Super Mario Bros? | io9 InterviewThe map is the creation of scientists at the Murray Laboratory for Planetary Visualization at the California Institute of Technology. Comprising 5.7 trillion pixels, it offers a sweeping, black-and-white look at Mars. It is a tremendous amount of data, so you…

In February 2021, NASA landed a $2.7 billion rover on Mars that has been roaming the Red Planet ever since. The space agency got what it paid for, as the largely autonomous Perseverance rover has been dutifully collecting rock core samples from Mars and storing them for the first sample return mission from another planet.Astronomers Could Soon Get Warnings When SpaceX Satellites Threaten Their ViewPerseverance was the fifth rover of its kind to be sent to Mars, but in terms of NASA’s future robotic exploration of Mars,…

ESA’s Sample Transfer Arm will pick up samples and load them into a spacecraft to launch them off the surface of Mars.Gif: ESA/NASA/GizmodoThe Mars Sample Return Program is a bold plan to deliver precious samples of Martian soil back to Earth without human intervention. A part of the plan includes a roughly 8.2-foot-long (2.5 meters) robotic arm that will deliver tubes full of Martian soil to a rocket for delivery back to Earth.The Mars Sample Return Program is a joint venture between NASA and ESA, with the latter…

The Chinese rover snapped this selfie of itself on Mars shortly after landing on the Red Planet.Image: China News ServiceChina’s Zhurong rover went into hibernation mode in May 2022 to avoid the harsh winter season on Mars, but communication issues, both with the rover and orbiter, suggest something’s now very wrong with the mission.The six-wheeled Martian rover was scheduled to wake up in late December, but it hasn’t been heard from since entering into its scheduled hibernation mode, unnamedsources told the South China…

The InSight lander, which has spent over four years carrying out science on the Martian surface, may have finally died due to a lack of solar power.A NASA JPL update published late yesterday said that InSight did not respond to communications from Earth on Sunday, December 18, “and it’s assumed InSight may have reached its end of operations.” The team last made contact with InSight on December 15.InSight’s battery has slowly been draining since it arrived on Mars. Dust blown about the Red Planet by gusty winds clung to…

The Viking 1 lander arrived on the Martian surface 46 years ago to investigate the planet. It dropped down intowhat was thought to be an ancient outflow channel. Now, a team of researchers believes they’ve found evidence of an ancient megatsunami that swept across the planet billions of years ago, less than 600 miles from where Viking landed.In a new paper published today in Scientific Reports, a team identified a 68-mile-wide impact crater in Mars’ northern lowlands that they suspect is leftover from an asteroid strike…

An artist’s conception of the Opportunity rover on Mars.Illustration: Courtesy of Prime VideoOften, the public only turns its gaze to space missions during the spectacular moments: launches and landings, mostly. But Mars rovers maintain a special place in our hearts, as they toil millions of miles from home, sending us updates and images over the course of years. We get used to receiving these alien postcards—until one day, a mission goes silent, and we have to say goodbye to the robot we grew to love.The goodbye was…

For nearly two years (has it been that long already?) NASA’s Perseverance rover has been scuttling about the western rim of Mars’ Jezero Crater, coring rocks and imaging the planet’s surface.The rover’s main purpose is to collect rock samples of scientific interest that can be stored on the surface and brought to Earth in 2033. Now, the rover team is finally selecting a spot to drop off its first cache of samples.The big question iswhether life ever existed on Mars, which is why Perseverance alighted in Jezero, a place…

On December 24, 2021—the day before the Webb Space Telescope would launch—a rock hurtled through the thin Martian atmosphere and slammed into the ground, leaving a crater nearly 500 feet across. This week, NASA revealed images of the impact site taken by a Mars-orbiting satellite.In a press conference Thursday, Lori Glaze,director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division, said the rock that caused the crater was probably between 17 and 33 feet (5-10 meters) across. A paper describing the impact and its seismic effects was…