Category Archives: Mars

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NASA scientists are studying the explosion of submarine volcano Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai to understand how features formed on the surfaces of Mars and Venus, Nature reported.

The unusual explosionwhich has been calculated at more than 500 times the force of the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945offers researchers a rare chance to study how water and lava interact.

Studying the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano and its evolution in recent weeks is "important for planetary science", Petr Broz, a planetary volcanologist at the Institute of Geophysics of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague, was quoted as saying.

The knowledge "might help us to reveal results of water-lava interactions on the red planet and elsewhere across the Solar System", he added.

The report said that the volcanic island was formed from ash and lava expelled from an undersea volcano in early 2015 and is similar to structures on Mars and possibly also Venus.

While such volcanic islands eroded fast, the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai survived for years.

"We don't normally get to see islands form," Broz explained

James Garvin, chief scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, but this one offered "a front-row seat".

Garvin's team used satellite observations and seafloor surveys to study how such islands form, erode and persist. The report said that the researchers wanted to use that knowledge to understand how small conical volcanoes found on Mars may have formed in the presence of water billions of years ago.

The Red Planet is also thought to have many volcanoes which erupted with steady flows of lava, but some could have been explosive, like Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai, Joseph Michalski, a planetary scientist at the University of Hong Kong, said.

The marine environment also mimics some aspects of the low-gravity settings on small planets such as Mars and "can shed unique light on Martian features that formed in lower gravity", he added.

The violent explosion last week was preceded by a series of small eruptions starting in December, which increased the size of the island.

Researchers worldwide are monitoring the island using optical, radar, and laser satellites to measure what is left on the island.

The vast majority of the island is now gone, according to Daniel Slayback, a geographer at the Goddard Space Flight Center.

But, Garvin said the giant chamber of magma deep under Earth's crust, which formed Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai, will eventually create another island for researchers to study.

**

The above article has been published from a wire source with minimal modifications to the headline and text.

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Tonga Volcanic Eruption May Give Insights about Water-Lava Interactions on Mars, Suggest NASA Scientists | The Weather Channel - Articles from The...

News Reports| Lafayette Journal & Courier

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. In less than a month, thePerseverance mission team will mark a full year since the Mars rover began exploring our neighboring planet.

Purdue's Briony Horgan, Perseverance mission member, looks forward to the team's next focus studying the planet's large river delta, now dry.

When we chose the landing site, it was because of the delta; thats the reason were here, said Horgan, associate professor of planetary science in the Purdue College of Sciences Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, in a release. So, well be excited to finally get up close and study it.

Horgan's duties included leadingmineralogy research using satellite data before landing, the release stated, producing results that contributed to NASAs selection ofJezero Crater as the rover's landing site.

The crater, Purdue's release stated, once held a lake and the river delta.

Well spend most of the next year on the delta, exploring this ancient lake and river environment and looking for signs of ancient life like organic material and signs of microbes, she said in the announcement.

During the mission's three-year journey, the Mars rover will collect rock and dust samples. After the those three year,Horgan stated, Perseverance will hopefully continue outside Jezero Crater indefinitely.

The key objective of the rover mission is to search for signs of microbial life, according to Purdue, by examining Mars' geology. A single rover journey could last 12-15 hours of travel, taking as long to prepare.

The second year of the mission, Horgan said in the release, the team hopes to move away fromsemi-autonomous travel.

With all the new technology on the rover, were working on how to drive on consecutive days and do longer and longer autonomous drives, she said. Then well make a beeline for the delta as fast as we can.

While a layered ridge spotted after landing turned out not to be semimentary rock that could reveal biosignatures of Mars' history, the material was determined to beancient lava flow that could still provide answers.

By doing that, we can actually figure out when the delta was there and when there was water in the crater, Horgan said in the release. Thats a really big question because we only have estimates for when we think Mars was wet and was habitable. We really dont know for sure.

Four unique rock and dust samples are expected to be collected by next months landing anniversary, Horgan stated.

Its an incredibly ambitious mission, with goals that are leaps and bounds beyond any previous Mars rover and really any previous space mission had been supposed to do: how far and fast were supposed to drive, how many samples were supposed to drill …, Horgan said in the release. Were still learning a lot.

Deanna Watson is the executive editor at the Journal & Courier. Contact her at dwatson@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @deannawatson66.

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Purdue professor, Mars rover mission team member looks at what is ahead - Journal & Courier

The company said that it will provide a modern take on the appearances of the characters which Mars calls lentils" and give them more nuanced personalities. The lentils, which are featured in red, green, orange, yellow, brown and blue, will also come in different shapes and sizes.

Some of the changes to the M&M characters include making two of them less stereotypically feminine. In the new version, the green M&M ditches the high-heeled boots in favor of sneakers and the brown candy no longer wears stilettos, opting instead for lower heels.

Our ambition is to upend the expected, break through barriers, and discover the little joys shared in everyday life. Imagine a world with less judgment & more connection & consistent laughter," the company said on its website.

Mars, whose brands also include Twix and Snickers, said that it will also put added emphasis on the ampersand in the M&M's logo to demonstrate how the brand aims to bring people together.

The move toward inclusivity and embracing individual differences comes at a time when consumers are growing increasingly aware of how products are marketed to them. Mars is aware of this, having had to change the name of itsUncle Ben'srice brand in 2020 due to criticism. Quaker Oats'Aunt Jemimabrand pancake mix and syrup part of PepsiCo rebranded last year because it said that Aunt Jemima was based on a racial stereotype.

But some marketers believe that Mars may be overthinking the marketing of its M&Ms.

Allen Adamson, co-founder of marketing consultancy Metaforce, says the move to overhaul the character of the M&Ms is a good idea" but it's just an example of how worried marketers are to offend consumers. And he believes this step is on the verge of potential overthink.

Marketing consultant Laura Ries agrees, though she praises Mars' emphasis of the ampersand as a symbol of unity.

They're looking for some attention and trying to jump on the bandwagon of trying to be more inclusive," Ries said. I dont think there was an overall outcry of the overall sexualization of the M&M. Its just an M&M.

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Mars gives M&M's a makeover to promote inclusivity - The Missourian

By NASAJanuary 23, 2022

A rainbow in the desert (on Earth.)

Are there rainbows on Mars? Sadly no. But there are a whole lot of other conditions on Mars that we have right here on Earth! NASA scientist Mark Lemmon explains why the Red Planet is a rainbowless world.

Thats a great question. There are water clouds in the thin atmosphere of Mars, so why not rainbows? You may have even seen an image from the Perseverance rover with an arc across the sky. That was not a rainbow; it was a lens flare. We saw that lens flare even in brightly lit laboratory images.

Rainbows, as it turns out, need more than just water, the substance. In a rainbow, sunlight enters a spherical droplet, reflects off the back, and comes back toward you. Unlike ice, liquid water droplets are made into spheres by the waters surface tension it pulls itself together. Snow does not make rainbows because it has a complex shape. Martian clouds are far below freezing. You do not get liquid droplets that can make rainbows; theres just not enough water.

The droplets are 20 times smaller across than a human hair, 10 times smaller than Earths cloud droplets, and far smaller than rain. They would have to be more than 10 times bigger to make a rainbow with a thousand times more water.

While there arent rainbows on Mars, there are many Earth-like weather phenomena. There are still clouds on Mars when the season is right, both water ice like we have on Earth and clouds of dry ice carbon dioxide. And there are dust devils, dust storms and winds that blow the clouds and dust around. So, weather is still a big part of what the rovers are looking at on Mars. But Im sorry to disappoint you. Mars has some Earth-like weather, but no rainbows.

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We Asked a NASA Scientist: Are There Rainbows on Mars [Video] - SciTechDaily

Late last year, Dogecoin (DOGE) competitor Dogelon Mars (ELON) was on the move. News had hit the wires of 2 leading exchanges listing ELON on their platforms. The exchanges were Gemini and Huobi Global.

Dogelon Mars is a dog-themed meme coin on Ethereum (ETH) and Polygon (MATIC), looking to harness the successes of Dogecoin and Shiba Inu Coin (SHIB) amongst others.

In October, ELON had struck an ATH 0.00000253 USDT before sliding back to a November low 0.00000094 USDT. News of ELONs inclusion on the 2 leading exchanges drove ELON back to 0.0000018 USDT levels before the latest sell-off.

Weighed by crypto market sentiment towards FED monetary policy and global regulatory activity, ELON has fallen back to sub-0.0000010 USDT levels.

In the week ending 23rd January, ELON ended the week down by 33.59% to 0.00000085 USDT. Of significance, however, was a recovery from a week and current month low 0.00000051 USDT.

With a 34.92% breakout on Sunday, ELON outperformed the broader market pointing to strong investor interest in the meme coin.

Touted to be an upgrade to Dogecoin, Dogecoins return to the top 10 cryptos by market cap should be another positive for ELON. Investor appetite for meme coins has yet to dissipate when considering that one sits on the CoinMarketCap top 10. At the time of writing, DOGE sat at #10, with a market cap of $18.3bn. By contrast, Dogelon Mars ranked a lowly #122, with a market cap of $448m.

Dogelon Mars had entered the CoinMarketCap top 100 late last year before last weeks sell-off. A move back into the top 100, however, would likely create renewed investor interest.

In the 4th quarter of 2021, ELON surged by 2,500% in spite of the pullback from Octobers ATH.

At the time of writing, ELON was down by 5.88% to 0.0000080 USDT. A move back through last weeks high 0.000000123 USDT would bring Januarys current month high 0.00000170 USDT into play. From 0.0000017 USDT levels, Dogelon Mars would have a clear run at Octobers ATH 0.00000253.

Currently sitting well below the 50-day and 100-day EMAs, however, a move through the 50-day EMA 0.00000124 USDT would be needed to support a run at Januarys high. With the 50-day EMA sitting at last weeks high, however, we can expect plenty of resistance a 0.0000012 USDT levels.

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Dogelon Mars Found Temporary Respite Amidst the Crypto Chaos - FX Empire

Is there life on Mars? Its a question that has long fascinated not just David Bowie, but the rest of us down here on Earth.

The search for answers is ongoing and at the heart of that quest is Stirling University academic Dr Christian Schroeder.

Dr Schroeder has been chosen to join the team piloting the European Space Agencys Mars Rover, which launches later this year.

He told Scotland Tonight how the search will work and what he expects to find.

Q: Christian, what is your role in this mission?

A: I will be part of the science team whos directing the Rover to locations where it can investigate and start drilling.

How does it work is there a team with a gearstick like a video game?

No, unfortunately not. Mars is too far away so we cant direct it in real time. A signal to Mars can take anywhere between a few minutes to 45 minutes.

We have to beam up the days tasks and the Rover will execute that list the next day and send back its data, which we analyse and then compile the next task list.

Tell us about the terrain and the atmosphere on Mars

Mars is known as the Red Planet and thats reflected in the material we see on the surface of its land and the stones and so on. All of it will come with a red tinge, even the atmosphere during the day, and theres a reddish sky. Funnily enough, the sky turns blue at sunset on Mars and its the opposite way on Earth.

What are you looking for?

The main goals of this mission are to search for signs of past or present life on Mars. And in that purpose, to investigate below the surface up to two metres deep and look for traces of water and how that affects the surface material.

Youre hoping to build on what the previous Rovers have discovered before is this going to be a more sophisticated mission?

We are building on what previous missions have found in the sense that we now know there was liquid water on Mars in the past, and that we think Mars was habitable, so microbial life could have survived there.

The unique selling point of this Rover is it can drill up to two metres below the surface. Thats much further than any Rover before, where we had maybe a few centimetres.

When youre talking about life on Mars, its not little green men?

Yes, when we talk about life on Mars, we talk about microbial life. We dont expect to find intelligent lifeforms, no War of the Worlds or anything like that.

Does it matter what you discover on Mars why should it matter to us back down here on Earth?

We dont know whether theres life on Mars or anywhere else in our solar system, but the way we think life originated on Earth, its plausible that it could have originated on Mars as well. This is a good test case to see how far we understand our own origins.

If we find anything on Mars that could resemble life, it could tell us whether there is a shared origin of life through our solar system. But there might also be a separate origin, and if you see a separate origin, two planets in one solar system, there might be quite a lot of life in the rest of the universe.

Do you think humans will ever live on Mars, or is that just the stuff of science fiction?

Personally, I wouldnt necessarily want to live on Mars. I think Earth is a much nicer planet and we should do our utmost to protect it, but there are plans from several space agencies to send humans to the red planet. And you know, there are private entrepreneurs who want to settle on Mars. So this is not science fiction. This is something I think will happen. How soon is another question.

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If theres life on Mars, I might be the one who finds it - STV News

Candy maker Mars is giving a makeover to its six M&Ms characters as a way to promote inclusivity.

The company said that it will provide a modern take on the appearances of the characters which Mars calls lentils and give them more nuanced personalities. The lentils, which are featured in red, green, orange, yellow, brown and blue, will also come in different shapes and sizes.

Some of the changes to the M&M characters include making two of them less stereotypically feminine. In the new version, the green M&M ditches the high-heeled boots in favor of sneakers and the brown candy no longer wears stilettos, opting instead for lower heels.

Our ambition is to upend the expected, break through barriers, and discover the little joys shared in everyday life. Imagine a world with less judgment & more connection & consistent laughter, the company said on its website.

Mars, whose brands also include Twix and Snickers, said that it will also put added emphasis on the ampersand in the M&Ms logo to demonstrate how the brand aims to bring people together.

The move toward inclusivity and embracing individual differences comes at a time when consumers are growing increasingly aware of how products are marketed to them. Mars is aware of this, having had to change the name of itsUncle Bensrice brand in 2020 due to criticism. Quaker OatsAunt Jemimabrand pancake mix and syrup part of PepsiCo rebranded last year because it said that Aunt Jemima was based on a racial stereotype.

But some marketers believe that Mars may be overthinking the marketing of its M&Ms.

Allen Adamson, co-founder of marketing consultancy Metaforce, says the move to overhaul the character of the M&Ms is a good idea but its just an example of how worried marketers are to offend consumers. And he believes this step is on the verge of potential overthink.

Marketing consultant Laura Ries agrees, though she praises Mars emphasis of the ampersand as a symbol of unity.

Theyre looking for some attention and trying to jump on the bandwagon of trying to be more inclusive, Ries said. I dont think there was an overall outcry of the overall sexualization of the M&M. Its just an M&M.

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Mars gives M&M's a makeover to promote inclusivity - Long Island Business News

WEST LAFAYETTE Almost one year into the Mars rover mission, accomplishing its goal is on the horizon for Purdue Universitys Briony Horgan and the Perseverance team.

Feb. 18 will mark one year since the rover landed on the red planet following a seven-month, 300-million-mile flight across space.

Horgan, associate professor of planetary science in the Purdue College of Sciences Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, said anticipation is building as the team focuses on the mission goal: researching a now-dry large river delta.

When we chose the landing site, it was because of the delta; thats the reason were here, Horgan said. So, well be excited to finally get up close and study it.

Horgan has been involved with several aspects of this mission. She led mineralogy research using satellite data before landing, and her team produced one of the major results on the location that contributed to NASAs selection of Jezero Crater which once held a lake and the river delta as the landing site.

Well spend most of the next year on the delta, exploring this ancient lake and river environment and looking for signs of ancient life like organic material and signs of microbes, she said.

The mission is intended to last three years as the Mars rover collects rock and dust samples. Horgan said that after the three-year point, the hope is Perseverance will continue outside Jezero Crater for as long as possible.

Horgan is now the long-term planner as part of the science leadership for NASAs Perseverance Mars rover, helping guide the mission strategy and scientific investigations. She discusses the rover mission on an episode of the This Is Purdue podcast.

While the key objective for the rover is searching for signs of ancient microbial life by examining the planets geology, theres been a learning curve to the first year of work. Once the rover began to traverse the landscape, things were deliberate, with 12-15 hours of travel taking just as long to plan.

With the second year approaching, Horgan said the team is hoping to step away from that semi-autonomous travel.

With all the new technology on the rover, were working on how to drive on consecutive days and do longer and longer autonomous drives, she said. Then well make a beeline for the delta as fast as we can.

Horgan said the mission already has proved both fruitful and surprising with the Mars rock and atmosphere samples collected. A layered ridge spotted after landing was initially expected to be semimentary rock that could hold biosignatures from the planets past.

Closer inspection, Horgan said, found that it was an ancient lava flow, but one that could still provide answers with the sample drilled from it. The same rocks are believed to underlie the delta and can be eventually examined for dating.

By doing that, we can actually figure out when the delta was there and when there was water in the crater, Horgan said. Thats a really big question because we only have estimates for when we think Mars was wet and was habitable. We really dont know for sure.

Horgan said the mission remains on track and has already surpassed the work of the Mars rover Curiosity, which was launched in November 2011. Four unique rock and dust samples are expected to be collected by next months landing anniversary.

Its an incredibly ambitious mission, with goals that are leaps and bounds beyond any previous Mars rover and really any previous space mission had been supposed to do: how far and fast were supposed to drive, how many samples were supposed to drill , Horgan said. Were still learning a lot.

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Purdue professor looks back to Perseverance's first year on Mars - Newsbug.info

A cold, wet Mars could have supported an ocean in the northern parts of the Red Planet three billion years ago, a new study finds.

New 3D climate simulations of the planet's ancient atmosphere and water suggest a liquid ocean once existed in the northern lowland basin of Mars. This ocean potentially persisted even when average global surface temperatures were below the freezing point of water, the peer-reviewed work suggests.

Although present-day Mars is cold and dry, decades of evidence suggests the ancient surface was covered with rivers, streams, ponds and lakes. Since water on Earth usually points to life, these old signs of water raise the possibility that the Red Planet was once home to life and might host it still.

Earth and Mars potentially had similar climates about three billion years ago, when life was spreading on our planet. However, scientists debate whether Mars was temperate enough then to host an ocean of water, a question that could strongly influence whether the Red Planet was habitable enough to support life. Indeed, NASA's Perseverance rover mission is one of many sent to Mars to assess the planet's suitability for hosting ancient life.

Related: Water on Mars: Exploration & evidence

The new findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, published Monday (Jan. 17), contradict previous research suggesting Mars could not support such an ocean three billion years ago.

Relatively few branching river valleys that date to that time on Mars, for example, suggesting a lack of intense and widespread rainfall expected from a warm and wet climate.

But not all evidence points to a dry world; other evidence of contemporary tsunami debris argues against a Martian climate that was too cold and dry for an ocean.

The new study suggests a liquid northern ocean was possible because ocean circulation patterns may have warmed up the surface of that region up to 40.1 degrees Fahrenheit (4.5 degrees Celsius), well above water's freezing point.

More water was potentially in ample supply, too. The northern ocean could have experienced moderate rainfall within it, as well as near its shorelines. Another potential source was flowing glaciers from the southern highlands of the Red Planet, which hosted ice sheets.

An ocean-friendly Martian atmosphere looks somewhat like the carbon dioxide-filled version we see today, but with a twist: roughly 10% of the atmosphere was made up of 10% hydrogen gas, potentially getting released by volcanoes, cosmic impacts or chemical interactions between water and rock. (Today, by contrast, hydrogen is only present in trace amounts.)

This atmosphere combination of carbon dioxide and hydrogen could have trapped enough heat from the sun to keep surface temperatures warm enough for an ocean of liquid water, the study suggests.

It remains uncertain, however, whether this ocean could have supported life. "We are only studying the conditions where life could appear," study lead author Frdric Schmidt, a planetary scientist at the University of Paris-Saclay, told Space.com. "A large standing body of water stable for a long time is important, probably necessary, but maybe not sufficient for life to appear."

Scientists are also unsure where the water went, Schmidt noted. Much of it could be frozen as ice under the surface of Mars, or chemically locked away in minerals. Solar radiation may have also broken water molecules apart into hydrogen and oxygen gas, with the hydrogen gas ultimately escaping into space, he added; NASA is tracking present-day Red Planet gas emissions through missions such as MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission).

In the future, China's Zhurong rover (currently on Mars) along with the planned ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover from the European Space Agency and Russia's Roscosmos could analyze the proposed boundary of this ancient ocean to confirm whether there was a shoreline and tsunami deposits there, the scientists said.

In the longer term, the proposed international Mars Ice Mapper mission could uncover additional signs of ancient seas on Mars, the team said. Future research may also explore what exact paths glaciers took to reach this ocean, to assist scientists in mapping geological evidence of glacial routes.

"For the moment, our simulation cannot predict that," Schmidt said.

Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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Chilly, damp Mars may have hosted an ancient ocean - Space.com

Red may well be the predominant color associated with the, er, Red Planet, but its purple that Perseverance keeps finding on Mars. Purple-coated rocks to be exact. And they're everywhere.

The plucky Mars rover has found these purple rocks at almost every site it's explored in Jezero Crater so far, ranging from large rocks to tiny pebbles, and yet NASA scientists aren't quite sure what this purple coating is or how it formed.

"I don't really have a good answer for you,"geochemist Ann Ollila, who presented an early analysis of the mysterious purple coating at the recent American Geophysical Union (AGU) conference, told National Geographic.

The purple appears as both a thin, smooth coating on some rocks and paint-like splodges on others. Deciphering its chemical make-up may offer insights into Mars's ancient environment.

This isn't actually the first time purple rocks or even green rocks, for that matter have been found on Mars. Curiosity discovered some near the base of Mount Sharp back in 2016. At the time, NASA noted that the variation in colors on Mars rocks hints at diversity of composition, and the purple-hued pebbles had been found where Curiosity's Chemical and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument had detected hematite, an iron oxide crystal.

It also helped that winds and windblown sand where Curiosity was exploring kept rocks dust-free, which might otherwise obscure the rocks' color.

The purple patches spotted by Perseverance have also been typically found in less dusty areas,according to another early analysis presented at the AGU conference, this time by a team, led by Bradley Garczynski of Purdue University, who are studying the coatings using images captured by Perseverance's "eye" cams, the Mastcam-Z cameras. They also may contain types of iron oxide, their findings suggest.

However,Garczynski told NatGeo we haven't seen this type of purple rock coating before, and certainly not in the frequency Perseverance seems to be coming across them.

Ollila's team has been using Perseverances' Supercam which can shoot a laser at rocks to vaporize them and study the rocks' properties to study the coating. Their early results seem to show the purple layer is softer and chemically distinct from the rock layer below, and maybe enriched in hydrogen and magnesium.

Hydrogen and iron oxide suggest water played a role in forming the purple patches.Perseverance has been exploring the Jezero Crater, a meteorite impact crater that once hosted an ancient lake, and there is plenty of evidence Mars once hosted water and was even a wet planet. However, the route Percy has been taking, and encountering these purple rocks, doesn't actually follow any lake sediments, but rather rocks that formed from cooling magma. So how these purple-hued rocks arrived at their location, and how or when they came into contact with water, remains a mystery.

Scientists have been looking into whether rock coatings found on Mars may help preserve evidence of ancient microbial life by preventing the Sun's intense radiation from degrading organic material. So chalk this new mystery up to potentially helping us discover the answer to theage-old question of whether there ever was, or could be, life on Mars.

[H/T: National Geographic]

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Mysterious Purple-Coated Rocks Found All Over The Place On Mars - IFLScience