Category Archives: Mars

Enlarge / Orbital image of the Utopia Planitia region of Mars.

Most of Mars appears to be an endless expanse of alien desert, without a river or lake in sight. However, liquid water definitely existed in the planets distant past. A new paper has also suggested that it's also possible small quantities of water still might exist in places that otherwise appear barren.

Before Chinas Zhurong (also known as Phoenix) rover went into hibernation mode last May, researchers from the National Astronomical Observatories and the Institute of Atmospheric Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences discovered something unexpected. Zhurong was exploring the Utopia Planitia region, which is near the planets equator. No liquid water was thought to exist at those latitudes. Yet when the rover beamed back data from its Multispectral Camera (MSCam), Navigation and Terrain Camera (NaTeCam), and Mars Surface Composition Detector (MarSCoDe), there was possible evidence for liquid water having been present less than half a million years ago.

[Our findings] suggest [features] associated with the activity of saline water, indicating the existence of water process on the low-latitude region of Mars, the researchers said in a study recently published in Science Advances.

Zhurong is part of Chinas Tianwen-1 Mars mission, which has helped expand our understanding of the environment on Mars. But evidence suggesting there was recently (at least in geological terms) liquid water is unexpected. Because Mars has lost most of its atmosphere and is exposed to intense radiation and solar wind, it was previously thought that water could not exist as a liquid there. Any that did form should quickly freeze or evaporate due to the extremely low pressure and a lack of water vapor.

It is especially dry at the lower latitudes where there are no glaciers, but Zhurong found features on dune surfaces that made the researchers, led by geologist Xiaoguang Qin, suspicious. These include cracks and crusts that must have been left behind when liquid water evaporated from the reddish soil. Further investigation revealed that the surfaces of these dunes were hiding hydrated silica and sulfates, minerals that contain water molecules, along with certain iron oxides and what seem to be chlorides.

Both the presence of these substances and the surface features observed by Zhurong most likely indicate that frost or snow had once fallen, melted, and seeped into the upper layer of the soil. It formed a brine after interacting with salt in the dunes and formed something of a cement when combined with grains of sand. These cements become crusts after they evaporate.

But if there really was water at the lower latitudes no more than 1.4 million and as little as 400,000 years ago, how did it get there?

Mars has gone through different epochs just like Earth. Its Amazonian period began some 2.9 billion years ago and extends to the present. After the transition from the Hesperian to the Amazonian period, Mars was no longer barraged by asteroids, while volcanic activity (some of which was triggered by those collisions) dropped considerably. Although most of its atmosphere had vanished by then, and the climate was drying out, there were still warm and humid periods.

Qin and his team think it was during these periods that water vapor from the frozen poles would spread to the warmer equator. This vapor would solidify into snow or frost during cooler weather and fall to the ground. It would then melt and evaporate when temperatures rose, leaving salty crusts behind.

This discovery could have implications for past or present habitability on Mars. As the climate evolved, so did the planets potential for hosting life (though whether it ever did remains a mystery). Future rovers may search for signs of life in areas that were overlooked before, especially where there are crusts, cracks, and depressions that might be telltale signs of water once having been present.

As saline water once existed at various latitudes on the surface of Mars, the researchers said, priority should be given to salt-tolerant microbes in future missions searching for extant life on Mars.

Science Advances, 2023. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.add886 (About DOIs).

Elizabeth Rayne is a creature who writes. Her work has appeared on SYFY WIRE, Space.com, Live Science, Grunge, Den of Geek, and Forbidden Futures. When not writing, she is either shapeshifting, drawing, or cosplaying as a character nobody ever heard of. Follow her on Twitter @quothravenrayne.

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Chinese Mars rover sends back images of recent water-shaped crusts - Ars Technica

Most everyone is familiar with Olympus Mons, the largest volcano on Mars and also the largest in the Solar System. But there are several other enormous shield volcanoes on Mars. The second largest is Ascraeus Mons, and new images from ESAs Mars Express spacecraft reveal some interesting features on the side or flank of the mountain.

The images show regions where underground lava flows emptied out of chambers or tubes, which then collapsed into chains of craters. There are also smaller snakelike channels called sinuous rilles, which meander in a curved path like a river. They are commonly thought to be the remains of smaller collapsed lava tubes, but scientists are still unsure how they form. In all, these dramatic and large fissures on the lower southern flank of Ascraeus Mons which are collectively named Ascraeus Chasmata cover an area an enormous area over 70 km across.

Ascraeus Mons is the northernmost and tallest of three prominent volcanoes found in the Tharsis region of Mars, a volcanic plateau in Mars western hemisphere. Ascraeus Mons reaches a towering 18 km (11.2 miles) in height but its slopes are gentle, with an average incline of 7 degrees. This slow climb is reflected in the volcanos huge base diameter of 480 km, giving it a footprint roughly the size of Romania on Earth.

Comparatively, Olympus Mons is 25 km (16 mi) high and 624 km (374 mi) in diameter, (approximately the same size as the state of Arizona). On Earth, Mauna Kea in Hawaii has an elevation of 4,205 meters (13,796 feet); however, the base of the volcano is about 6,000 meters (19,685 feet) below sea level. So, if Mauna Kea is measured from the base of the volcano on the ocean floor to the summit, it is over 10,000 meters (33,000 feet) tall.

Mars Express has been orbiting the Red Planet since 2003, imaging Mars surface, mapping its minerals, identifying the composition and circulation of its tenuous atmosphere, while also probing beneath its crust, and exploring how various phenomena interact in the Martian environment.

Further reading: ESA

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New Photos Show Collapsed Chains of Craters on a Martian Volcano - Universe Today

On Mars, you can't judge a book-shaped rock by its cover.

NASA's Curiosity rover ran across the hardcover-shaped feature on April 15, which happened to be the 3,800th Martian day (or sol) of the long-running mission.

Much like librarians, geologists need to carefully read the clues around them. The strange shape of Mars rocks like this one are usually due to water trickling in the area billions of years ago, when the Red Planet was much wetter, NASA officials said.

Now the planet is much drier, and windier. "After eons of being sand-blasted by the wind, softer rock is carved away, and the harder materials are all that's left," officials with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, which manages Curiosity's mission, stated on Thursday (opens in new tab) (May 11) of the find.

Related: Curiosity rover: 15 awe-inspiring photos of Mars (gallery)

While writing is thought to have originated in ancient Sumer (near the modern-day Persian Gulf) some 5,400 years ago, according to the J. Paul Getty Museum (opens in new tab), the ways in which humans record information is diverse.

One 2023 study suggests a cave painting's "dots" may be a form of writing from 20,000 years ago, although the conclusion is controversial. And more modern forms of writing have been placed on rock walls, in clay tablets or in scrolls, to name numerous types of reading formats.

What many people now call "books" originated with codices, first as wax tablets and then as parchment in the Mediterranean and Mesopotamian areas, according to the British Library (opens in new tab). Dating is tricky, but the format seems to be fairly prevalent at least by Greco-Roman times if not earlier.

Curiosity has been exploring Mars' Gale Crater since August 2012, with key results in science papers including the discovery of persistent liquid water on ancient Mars, potential evidence of ancient life through organics, and examinations of radiation at the surface, according to JPL (opens in new tab).

A successor mission, Perseverance, is working in the Jezero Crater area of Mars and caching tubes (or lightsabers) of samples for future return to Earth. The sample return effort is expected to ramp up in the late 2020s with the launch of a set of relay spacecraft and a couple of mini-helicopters.

Elizabeth Howell is the co-author of "Why Am I Taller (opens in new tab)?" (ECW Press, 2022; with Canadian astronaut Dave Williams), a book about space medicine. Follow her on Twitter@howellspace (opens in new tab). Follow us on Twitter@Spacedotcom (opens in new tab)orFacebook (opens in new tab).

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Curiosity rover finds water-carved 'book' rock on Mars (photo) - Space.com

Ancient Mars may have had its share of raging rivers.

There are plenty of signs that liquid water flowed on the Red Planet long ago. But most of that evidence points to lakes, oceans or relatively gentle streams, such as the ancient creeks uncovered by NASA's Curiosity rover in Mars' huge Gale Crater.

But Curiosity's younger cousin Perseverance, which is been exploring a different Mars crater called Jezero, has rolled up on a long-dead riverbed that looks completely different. This one features coarse grains and cobbles, bulky stuff that couldn't be displaced by a mere trickle.

"Those indicate a high-energy river that's truckin' and carrying a lot of debris," Libby Ives, a postdoctoral researcher at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, which operates Perseverance, said in a statement (opens in new tab) on Thursday (May 11). "The more powerful the flow of water, the more easily it's able to move larger pieces of material."

Related:12 amazing photos from the Perseverance rover's 1st year on Mars

Perseverance gathered some of this newfound evidence at a spot the mission team calls Skrinkle Haven (apparently in a nod to a beach in England (opens in new tab)). The site features curving bands of layered rock, which were almost certainly formed by powerfully flowing water, NASA officials said.

But the nature of the river that sculpted this landscape remains a matter of some debate. It may have been a snaking river whose banks shifted over time, or a "braided" one marked by protruding sand bars, mission team members said.

In either scenario, the rock bands were likely much taller initially but were cut down to their present size by the sandblasting Martian wind.

"The wind has acted like a scalpel that has cut the tops off these deposits," Perseverance science team collaborator Michael Lamb, a river specialist based at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, said in the same statement.

"We do see deposits like this on Earth, but they're never as well exposed as they are here on Mars," Lamb added. "Earth is covered in vegetation that hides these layers."

Further potential evidence of fast-flowing ancient water comes from Pinestand, a hill that lies about 0.28 miles (0.45 kilometers) from Skrinkle Haven. Pinestand features sedimentary rock layers, some of which rise as high as 65 feet (20 meters).

"These layers are anomalously tall for rivers on Earth," Ives said. "But at the same time, the most common way to create these kinds of landforms would be a river."

The 28-mile-wide (45 km) Jezero hosted a big lake and a river delta long ago. Perseverance will continue exploring and characterizing this intriguing environment, which researchers think was capable of supporting Earth-like life long ago.

"What's exciting here is we've entered a new phase of Jezero's history. And it's the first time we're seeing environments like this on Mars," Perseverance Deputy Project Scientist Katie Stack Morgan of JPL said in the same statement. "We're thinking about rivers on a different scale than we have before."

Perseverance landed on Jezero's floor in February 2021, along with NASA's tiny Ingenuity helicopter. The rover is studying Jezero's geology, hunting for signs of past Mars life and collecting samples for future return to Earth.

Mike Wall is the author of "Out There (opens in new tab)" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter@michaeldwall (opens in new tab). Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) and on Facebook (opens in new tab).

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Perseverance rover spies signs of ancient raging rivers on Mars - Space.com

Artists rendition of the Rosalind Franklin rover. ESA / ATG medialab March 17, 2022, was a rough day for Jorge Vago. A planetary physicist, Vago heads science for part of the European Space Agencys ExoMars program. His team was mere months from launching Europes first Mars rovera goal they had been working toward for nearly two decades. But on that day, ESA suspended ties with Russias space agency over the invasion of Ukraine. The launch had been planned for Kazakhstans Baikonur Cosmodrome, which is leased to Russia.

They told us we had to call the whole thing off, Vago says. We were all grieving.

It was a painful setback for the beleaguered Rosalind Franklin rover, originally approved in 2005. Budget woes, partner switches, technical issues and the Covid-19 pandemic had all, in turn, caused previous delays. And now, a war. Ive spent most of my career trying to get this thing off the ground, Vago says. Complicating things further, the mission included a Russian-made lander and instruments, which the member states of ESA would need funding to replace. They considered many options, including simply putting the unused rover in a museum. But then, in November, came a lifeline, when European research ministers pledged 360 million euros to cover mission expenses, including replacing Russian components.

When the rover finally does, hopefully, blast off in 2028, it will carry a suite of advanced instrumentsbut one in particular could make a huge scientific impact. Designed to analyze any carbon-containing material found underneath Marss surface, the rovers next-generation mass spectrometer is the linchpin of a strategy to finally answer the most burning question about the Red Planet: Is there evidence of past or present life?

There are a lot of different ways that you can search for life, says analytical chemist Marshall Seaton, a NASA postdoctoral program fellow at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and coauthor of a paper on planetary analysis in the Annual Review of Analytical Chemistry. Perhaps the most obvious and direct route is simply looking for fossilized microbes. But nonliving chemistry can create deceptively lifelike structures. Instead, the mass spectrometer will help scientists look for molecular patterns that are unlikely to be formed in the absence of living biology.

Hunting for the patterns of life, instead of structures or specific molecules, has an added benefit in an extraterrestrial environment, Seaton says. It allows us to not only look for life as we know it, but for life as we dont know it.

At NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center outside Washington, DC, planetary scientist William Brinckerhoff shows off a prototype of the rovers mass spectrometer, known as the Mars Organic Molecule Analyzer, or MOMA. Roughly the size of a carry-on suitcase, the instrument is a labyrinth of wires and metal. Its really a workhorse, Brinkerhoff says as his colleague, planetary scientist Xiang Li, adjusts screws on the prototype before demonstrating a carousel that holds samples.

This working prototype is used to analyze organic molecules in Mars-like soils on Earth. And once the real MOMA gets to Mars, approximately in 2030, Brinckerhoff and his colleagues will use the prototypeas well as a pristine copy kept in a Mars-like environment at NASAto test tweaks to experimental protocols, troubleshoot issues that come up during the mission and facilitate interpretation of Mars data.

This latest mass spectrometer can trace its roots back nearly 50 years, to the first mission that studied Martian soil. For the twin 1976 Viking landers, engineers miniaturized room-size mass spectrometers to roughly the footprint of todays desktop printers. The instruments were also on board the 2008 Phoenix lander, the 2012 Curiosity rover and later Mars orbiters from China, India and the US.

Anyone visiting Brinckerhoffs prototype must first pass a display case with a dismantled copy of the Viking instrument, on loan from the Smithsonian Institution. This is like a national treasure, Brinckerhoff says, enthusiastically pointing out components.

Mass spectrometers are indispensable tools that are used for analytical chemistry in laboratories and other facilities worldwide. TSA agents use them to test luggage for explosives at the airport. EPA scientists use them to test drinking water for contaminants. And drugmakers use them to determine chemical structures of potential new medications.

Many kinds of mass spectrometers exist, but each is a three-part instrument, explains Devin Swiner, an analytical chemist at the pharmaceutical company Merck. First, the instrument vaporizes molecules into the gas phase, and also gives them an electrical charge. These charged, or ionized, gas molecules can then be manipulated with electric or magnetic fields so theyll move through the instrument.

Second, the instrument sorts ions by a measurement that scientists can relate to molecular weight, so they can determine the number and type of atoms a molecule contains. Third, the instrument records all the weights in a sample along with their relative abundance.

With MOMA aboard, the Rosalind Franklin rover will land at a Martian site that roughly 4 billion years ago likely had water, a crucial ingredient for ancient life. The rovers cameras and other instruments will help to select samples and provide context about their environment. A drill will retrieve ancient samples from as deep as two meters. Scientists hypothesize thats far enough, Vago says, to be shielded from cosmic radiation on Mars that breaks up molecules like a million little knives.

Space-bound mass spectrometers must be rugged and lightweight. A mass spectrometer with MOMAs capabilities would normally occupy multiple workbenches, but its been shrunk substantially. To be able to take something that can be as big as a room to the size of like a toaster or a small suitcase and send it into space is a very huge deal, Swiner says.

MOMA will help scientists look for telltale signs of life on Mars by sifting through molecules in search of patterns that are unlikely to be formed any other way. For instance, lipidscompounds that include building blocks of cell membraneshave a preponderance of even numbers of carbon atoms in nearly all living things, while nonliving chemistry produces a more equal mix of even and odd numbers of carbon atoms. Finding a set of lipids with carbon atoms that are multiples of a numberrather than a random assortmentis a potential signature of life.

Similarly, amino acidsthe building blocks of proteinscan be created either by life or by non-biological chemistry. They come in two forms that are mirror images of each other but are otherwise identical, like left and right hands. On Earth, life overwhelmingly contains only left-handed amino acids. Nonliving chemistry makes both left- and right-handed varieties. In other words, a large excess of either left- or right-handed amino acids is more lifelike than a more even mixture.

More generally, scientists think that chemical distributions similar to these would be indicative of life even if the molecules exhibiting the patterns dont exist in Earth biochemistry.

Previous Mars missions that included mass spectrometers ran into problems that hampered their ability to identify signs of life. Scientists took those hard-earned lessons and designed MOMA to overcome those hurdles, including one of the most troubling ones: the notorious molecule destroyer, perchlorate. Perchlorate, which also turns up in extreme Earth environments like South Americas Atacama Desert, can degrade organic molecules at high temperatures, obscuring potential signs of life.

In 2008, the Mars Phoenix lander discovered perchlorate ions in Mars soil. Two other missions, the Viking lander and the Curiosity rover, detected chlorinated hydrocarbonspossible byproducts of perchlorate reacting with Martian molecules in the high-temperature ovens of their mass spectrometers. This meant that perchlorate may have obscured any evidence of organic molecules that could indicate life.

MOMA cleverly circumvents the perchlorate problem with an ultraviolet laser. The laser vaporizes and ionizes samples in one go, with pulses of light lasting under two nanosecondstoo quick for perchlorate reactions to occur.

The laser has another benefit: It leaves molecules largely intact when giving them a charge to create ions. Viking and Curiosity generated ions by bombarding them with electrons. Those collisions didnt preserve weak chemical bonds that can be important for determining the structures of molecules in a sample, whereas the laser keeps molecule fragmentation to a minimum. MOMA can then sort those relatively intact ions and deliberately fragment a single ion of interest in isolation, something neither Viking nor Curiosity could do. By analyzing the resulting puzzle pieces of that ion, its possible to determine the chemical structure of the original molecule from the Martian sample and thus identify what it is.

It will be the first time this laser technique goes to Mars, but tests on Earth suggest it will work. The prototype found traces of organic molecules even in the presence of more perchlorate than Phoenix detected in Martian soil, Brinckerhoff says. And in Mars-like samples collected in Yellowstone National Park, it detected lipids and other molecules that are more complex than ones picked up on previous Mars missions.

MOMA, like its predecessors, also has high-temperature ovens and scientists can still opt to use these instead of the laser to vaporize samples. If the laser turns up hints of amino acids, for instance, the oven option could provide information the laser cannot. When in oven mode, MOMA uses three chemical reagents that stabilize molecules to facilitate mass spectrometry. One of these, which has never before been used on Mars, is there to tell apart left- and right-handed amino acids, enabling it to make a case for living or nonliving origins in a way that prior missions could not.

MOMA wont be the last word on whether life ever existed on Mars. Even the most tantalizing results would have to be confirmed by repeated experiments and lines of evidence from the rovers other instruments, Vago says. Some confirmatory work also could take place through other missions or even someday from analysis of Mars samples brought back to Earth. We will need to build a case, because otherwise nobodys going to believe us, Vago says.

The international team of scientists that has been working on the mission knows what they need to build that case, but until the Rosalind Franklin rover lands on the Red Planets surface, they cant get started. All of those scientists shared the disappointment in March 2022 of seeing the long-stalled mission delayed once again.

But for Brinckerhoff, that disappointment is tempered with excitement: After all, the mission is still alive. This thing is the best of all of us, he says, and just to see it operate on Mars is going to be career catharsis.

Knowable Magazine is an independent journalistic endeavor from Annual Reviews.

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The Mission That Could Transform Our Understanding of Mars - Smithsonian Magazine

This image was taken by Front Hazard Avoidance Camera (Front Hazcam) onboard NASA's Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 3823. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech. Download image

Earth Planning date: Wednesday May 10, 2023

Coming in for sol 3825 planning today, the team was very excited to see that we successfully drilled a new hole on the Ubajara target. The image shows the drill contacting the rock, just before beginning the drilling activity.

On the first sol of the plan, we begin with some imaging. We take a stereo mosaic of the target Kukenan to document the bedding of the local bedrock. We also take ChemCam and Mastcam post-drill observations of the drill target, Ubajara, to see the drill hole and the drill tailings. There is also a Navcam large dust devil survey and a Mastcam image of the CheMin inlet before we drop off sample. Normally we take images of the CheMin inlet immediately before and after sample drop-off. This time we are doing the sample drop-off at night in order to minimize the time between dropping off and analysis. As a result, we have to take the images of the inlet outside of the arm activities. After a nap, Curiosity wakes up to drop off the sample to CheMin for an overnight analysis. Science is very anxious to see how this sample differs from Tapo Caparo, which was about 25m lower in elevation than the Ubajara location. A few hours later, CheMin will proceed with analyzing the sample.

On the second sol of the plan, we are trying to conserve power for an expected upcoming SAM observation on the sample. We have some imaging, including Mastcam imaging for change detection on the target Azufral (which we observed in the prior plan), and a stereo mosaic to extend our workspace coverage, and the image of the CheMin inlet after the drop-off. ChemCam takes a LIBS observation and Mastcam a single supporting image of the target Jaru, a nodular bedrock target nearby. In this block is also an Navcam atmospheric observation, line-of-sight facing north. Lastly, ChemCam takes an RMI long-distance image of the inverted channel, near the area the rover may approach in the future.

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Sols 3825-3826: Another Beautiful Hole on Mars NASA Mars ... - NASA Mars Exploration

illustration of rover on the surface of mars with very dusty sky in background

A Mars game coming to PC in 2024 will get a big boost from a planetary scientist.

Konstantin Batygin, who is best known for his search for the mysterious Planet Nine that may be far out in the solar system, will join the team behind "Mars Horizon 2," an upcoming game that has players search for fictional Red Planet life.

Batygin, a California Institute of Technology planetary scientist, has pledged to help the gaming team with Mars mission design and fact-checking the research, developer Auroch Digital and publisher Secret Mode wrote in a release.

"His invaluable knowledge and expertise will ensure that'Mars Horizon 2'is as authentic as possible, accurately portraying space exploration and extrapolation beyond present day as the search for life in the universe continues," the statement added. For his own part, Batygin retweeted the announcement Thursday (May 11) from the official Mars Horizon 2 Twitter account.

Related: Hunt for alien biosignatures in 'Mars Horizon 2: The Search for Life' on PC

Mars Horizon | $19.99 $6.60 from Green Man GamingSave 67% on Mars Horizon, which lets you race to the Red Planet while developing your Mission Control. Play with real-life rocket hardware from NASA, the European Space Agency or other space groups around the world.View Deal

illustration of rover on the surface of mars with very dusty sky in background

Mars Horizon 2, shown here in pre-release and early footage, will have space gamers explore the Red Planet for life. (Image credit: Auroch Digital and Secret Mode)

Mars Horizon 2 is the successor to the "space race"-like Mars Horizon, which released in 2020. The original game allowed players to design virtual rocket programs based on real-life space hardware from NASA, the European Space Agency and other worldwide space groups.

Of the successor game, the developers wrote on March 7, players will "race to make discoveries ahead of rival agencies, using established scientific methodology in tandem with modern and near-future technologies to seek, recover, and analyze alien biosignatures."

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Both Mars Horizon games are somewhat similar to the popular Kerbal Space Program (KSP) series; KSP 2 released on Feb. 24 and is still delivering early access updates for players. Kerbal also has players managing space programs, but focuses a little more on real-life physics. The Mars Horizon games hone in on Mission Control elements like managing staff, building facilities or making difficult decisions when missions face issues in space.

Real-life space agencies also have numerous Mars missions on the go in the quest to find ancient life on its surface. For example, NASA and the European Space Agency are engaging in a sample return campaign aiming to bring Red Planet rocks to Earth as soon as 2033.

The Perseverance rover has already collected and stored 10 twin samples of material, one set on the surface of the Red Planet and one inside its belly. The mission design, still being reviewed, for now suggests that Perseverance may deliver the samples to a spacecraft that will relay the material back to our planet. If the rover is disabled, two fresh fetch helicopters would do the planetary deliveries themselves.

Elizabeth Howell is the co-author of "Why Am I Taller?" (ECW Press, 2022; with Canadian astronaut Dave Williams), a book about space medicine. Follow her on Twitter@howellspace. Follow us on Twitter@SpacedotcomorFacebook.

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'Mars Horizon 2' lets players search for Red Planet life with real ... - Yahoo News

Its fun to imagine what exists out there beyond our world. The vastness of space feels full of possibility and mystery. Theres still so much that we dont know about our solar system, but what we do know is absolutely fascinating. Weve put together this list of fun facts about Mars, the only planet other than Earth that might sustain life, to share with students in the classroom.

This is one of the most popular facts about Mars! Its soil is rich in iron, which is why the surface and atmosphere look red.

The planets red color is reminiscent of blood.

Its diameter is 4,222 miles.

Only Mercury is smaller.

Its also much, much smaller than the sun. If the sun is about the size of a front door, Mars is the size of an aspirin in comparison!

Mars was formed when gravity pulled in swirling gas and dust.

Its not a gas planet like Saturn or Jupiter. The surface of Mars is hard and rocky, which means you can walk on it.

Its far from the sun and any source of heat, so while the average temperature on Mars is around 80 degrees Fahrenheit, it can be as cold as 284F at its poles.

According to NASA, Regolith is dust and broken rock, and collecting it requires a different approach than collecting rock cores.

The moons, named Phobos and Deimos, are both smaller than Earths moon.

They are made up of dry ice, or solid carbon dioxide.

The days on Mars last 37 minutes longer than on Earth.

Not only are they the largest in the solar system, but they can cover the whole planet, reach speeds of 125 miles per hour, and last for months!

A collision between Mars and its moon, Phobos, has been predicted, but if it happens, it wont be for another 50 million years!

Since it takes longer for Earth to orbit around the sun, a year on Mars is the same as 687 Earth days (which is almost double!).

The gravity on Mars is only 38% of that on Earth!

The red planet is home to Olympus Mons which is three times taller than Mount Everest.

You dont need binoculars or a telescope to find it!

While they are longer than those on Earth, Mars also has seasons. They vary in duration, though, since Mars takes an oval orbit around the sun.

Spring lasts for 194 days on Mars.

Autumn lasts just 142 days.

There are an incredible 43,000 craters on the planet with a diameter of 3.1 miles or greater. No wonder some say it looks like Swiss cheese!

Its located in Mars southern hemisphere and is over 3.7 miles deep and 1.24 miles across.

The Valles Marineris is 2,500 miles long and 4 miles deep. Our Grand Canyon is much smaller at just 226 miles long and 1 mile deep. Wow!

Thats because it has less gravity pulling you down.

The lack of gravity can cause a loss of calcium.

Based on what the Mars rovers have shown us, there arent a lot of craters in the northern hemisphere.

There, youll also find highlands, the Hellas Planitia crater, and the Valles Marineris canyon.

While Earth is much bigger, its covered with a lot of water.

Humans would need to wear a spacesuit with oxygen to go outside.

They touched down on the red planets surface in 1976.

After it landed in 1997, the Spirit and Opportunity touched down in 2004.

NASA is hoping to do its first human mission by the 2030s.

Incredibly, its just about 100 times thinner than Earths atmosphere.

Many speculate that the channels were created by running water.

A layer of carbon dioxide frost forms on the planets surface.

The environment makes it difficult if not impossible for liquid to remain on the surface.

It consists of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and argon.

Even NASA has described Deimos and Phobos as raggedy.

NASAs Curiosity rover discovered evidence of liquid water under polar caps, which is a possible sign that life once existed on Mars.

Some debris from the planet landed on Earth as meteorites.

His observation took place in 1610.

Since its farther away, the sun would look half the size of how we see it on Earth.

Unfortunately, only 18 were successful.

No wonder it gets so frosty on the surface!

Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system.

NASAs Mariner 4 captured 22 groundbreaking images.

The Zhurong Mars rover touched down in 2021.

An astronomer named Giovanni Schiaparelli saw straight lines on Mars and assumed they were canals. When telescopes became more advanced, scientists were able to determine that the lines had been an illusion.

Excerpt from:

50 Fascinating Facts About Mars To Share With Kids - WeAreTeachers

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Scientists at The Open University (OU) have analyzed isotopic measurements in the atmosphere of Mars, providing new information on the evolution of the Martian climate throughout history and the origin of surface organics on Mars.

The atmosphere of Mars, which is mostly made of carbon dioxide (CO2), is relatively enriched in "heavy" carbon (13C) with respect to Earth due to the preferential escape of "light" carbon (12C) to space over several billion years.

Scientists from the OU's Atmospheric Research and Surface Exploration group have analyzed data from the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) mission, which indicate that Martian carbon monoxide (CO) is depleted in heavy carbon instead.

Dr. Juan Alday, lead author of the study which is published in Nature Astronomy, explains, "The key for understanding why there is less 13C in CO lies in the chemical relationship between CO2 and CO. When CO2 molecules are destroyed by sunlight to form CO, 12CO2 molecules are more efficiently destroyed than 13CO2, leading a depletion of 13C in CO over long periods of time."

Despite the small amount of CO in the atmosphere of Mars (less than 0.1%), these new measurements have important implications to our understanding of the evolution of the Martian climate and can help determine the historical climate conditions that enabled the presence of liquid water on the surface of early Mars.

Dr. Alday commented, "We do not know what the atmosphere of early Mars was like nor what conditions allowed liquid water to flow on the surface. The isotopes of carbon on Mars' atmosphere can help us estimate how much CO2 there was in the past.

"The new measurements by the ExoMars TGO suggest that less CO2 has escaped the planet than previously thought and provide new constraints on the composition of this early atmosphere of Mars."

Recent measurements made by NASA's Curiosity Rover on the surface revealed a depletion of 13C in surface organic material.

Manish Patel, who leads the OU ExoMars research group, said, "There is a long-standing debate on whether organic material on the surface of Mars was produced by biological or non-biological processes.

"The fact that both atmospheric CO and surface organics share this 13C-depleted isotopic signature that Juan has measured may indicate these organics are more likely to be non-biological in origin, although other origins cannot be ruled out based solely on this information."

More information: Juan Alday et al, Photochemical depletion of heavy CO isotopes in the Martian atmosphere, Nature Astronomy (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41550-023-01974-2

Journal information: Nature Astronomy

Original post:

Space scientists provide new insight into the evolution of Mars' atmosphere - Phys.org