Category Archives: Mars

PowerWash Simulator lets players run a power washing business and earn money by completing various cleaning tasks. The gameplay focuses on cleaning dirt off items and structures with a power washer. As the game progresses and the business expands, players will get more difficult jobs with better rewards. Players will even venture into space and specifically Mars, to clean the Mars Rover, which requires cleaning a special hatch.

You will travel to space during the Clean the Mars Rover mission, and it is the only mission available in the special missions section during the games early stages. As the name suggests, you need to clean the Mars Rover entirely using your power washer; however, the hatch of Mars Rover is missing, and you need to find it.

Since the hatch isnt attached to the rover, it is not visible upon landing; however, it isnt far away from the Mars Rover. Simply walk a few steps on the opposite side of Mars Rover, and youll come across the hatch. It has a rusty brown color and pyramid-like shape. There is also a garden gnome on top of it, which is not significant to the mission. Upon reaching the hatch, use your power washer to clean it off.

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Where to find the Mars Rover Hatch in PowerWash Simulator - Gamepur

Former MTLEY CRE singer John Corabi says that he doesn't know if the songs he recorded with Mick Mars five years ago will make it to the MTLEY CRE guitarist Mick Mars's highly anticipated debut solo album.

Back in 2016, Mars released snippets of two solo songs, apparently called "Gimme Blood" and "Shake The Cage". The tracks, which were recorded at Blackbird Studio in Nashville, where Mars has lived for about eight years, featured Corabi, who appeared on CRE's 1994 self-titled album. Corabi later said that he didn't contribute to the writing process for the two songs, but that he was open to collaborating with Mars on some brand new material.

During a December 22 Facebook Live session, Corabi was asked about the fate of the material he recorded with Mars. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "A couple of years ago, Mick asked me to sing a couple of songs, and I did it. He put snippets of them out, but he's gone on to do a full record. And as of right now, I have no idea whether or not Mick is using those songs. It's Mick's solo record. He just asked me to sing two tunes. Unfortunately I wanted to do more, and Mick wanted me to do more, but I wasn't able to, because of my schedule and because of Mick's schedule. So we'll all just have to wait and see. I'm as excited to hear Mick's record as you are. And we'll see. Hopefully he used those songs. Maybe he didn't. I don't know."

Mars has been working on his solo disc on and off for at least the past five years. Some of the early sessions for the LP were helmed by recently retired producer Michael Wagener (OZZY OSBOURNE, ACCEPT, WARRANT, SKID ROW) at the aforementioned Blackbird Studio.

Almost two years ago, Alabama musician Jacob Bunton revealed that he was the lead singer on Mars's solo album. Speaking to AL.com, Bunton, who has previously played with LYNAM and former GUNS N' ROSES drummer Steven Adler, said about his collaboration with Mars: "I can tell you that I'm involved and the past several months we wrote and recorded a record and Michael Wagener produced it. The great Michael Wagener from [mixing 1986 METALLICA album] 'Master Of Puppets' and all that kind of stuff. He worked with MTLEY CRE on their very first record 'Too Fast For Love', when they did it themselves they recorded the record and then Michael Wagener mixed, and then when they got the record deal with Elektra, [QUEEN producer] Roy Thomas Baker ended up going back and remixing it. But on all of their self-released copies, it's Michael. But to make a long story short, Michael's producing the record because that was the first producer Mick worked with in MTLEY CRE, so he wanted to do his solo album, so it's been really cool. We've been recording it in Nashville and we're almost done."

Regarding what fans can expect from Mars's solo CD, Bunton said: "The songs are really cool, the record is really cool. He's such an inventive player and his riffs are insane and it's definitely going to be what people are expecting. When they hear it It's really cool."

In September 2019, Mick told Billboard about the musical direction of his solo material: "[It's] not like today's music, which to me is pretty much pop metal and more growly guys. It's all cool and it's all good, and I'm just searching for something that's just a little different than that. I [also] don't want to be living in '85. It's hard to reinvent yourself, but that's what I'm doing now. I'm trying to reinvent the way that I approach music writing. I've got a lot of crap, and I've got a lot of good stuff too."

At the time of the Billboard interview, Mars said that he had been working with a vocalist named Jacob, leading some fans to speculate that he was referring to Bunton. "[He] can be a lot of different voices, and it's pretty amazing," Mick said. "I go, 'I want this kind of voice here,' and he'll pull it straight off."

In a separate interview with "Talking Metal", Mars said that his debut solo record will not sound like anybody else. "Well, I guess it's my own style," he said. "It isn't really blues. My playing has a blues element to it, of course, but it isn't what you would call a blues record. It's more of a heavier rock thing, but I don't wanna even try to 'outheavy' the heavies, you know what I mean? It's just something hopefully just a little different than what's going on now. You're not gonna hear a MTLEY-flavored song, except for the guitar, [because] that's me. They're gonna be a bit harder than that, but not as hard as the heavies, like MINISTRY and some of those guys."

This past August, KORN drummer Ray Luzier confirmed that he is a featured guest on Mars's solo album.

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JOHN CORABI Doesn't Know If Songs He Recorded With MICK MARS Will Make It To MTLEY CRE Guitarist's Solo Album - BLABBERMOUTH.NET

For the first small Martian colonies, & # 171; natural government & # 187; would be ideal.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk believes that the first colonies on Mars can be managed in the same way as the first colonies on the American continent direct democracy. The initiator of the & # 171; Martian & # 187; SpaceX program on Tuesday, December 28, said in an interview with scientist and blogger Lex Friedman.

According to Musk, representative democracy, when laws are passed by representatives elected by the people, the first small colonies are not needed, and he himself would have proposed & # 171; natural government & # 187 ;.

& # 171; People themselves will be able to vote for the adoption of laws & # 187; Musk said, adding that the laws should be simple and easy to understand.

Earlier it was reported that huge reserves of ice were discovered on Mars. It is in a stable condition, which indicates the unique climatic and geological conditions in the Mariner valleys.

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Direct democracy: Musk told what the political system of Mars should be - The Times Hub

A region within Mars's Valles Marineris (pictured) called the Candor Chaoshad a large amount of hydrogen about a meter below the surface. European Space Agency

Located below the Red Planet's equator, the Valles Marineris isone of the largest known series of canyonsin the solar system. About a meter beneath the valley's surface, astronomers have now detected a large amount of hydrogen, reports Michelle Starr forScience Alert. The discovery, published in the journalIcarus,may allow future astronauts to access water on Mars easily.

While water has been previously known to exist on Mars, most of it is found as ice caps near the poles.Water and ice havenever been found at the surface near the equator, however,because temperatures are not cold enough for it to be stable, per astatement. Other missions have looked for surface water hidden as ice on dust particles or locked within minerals.

Researchers at the European Space Agency and the Russian Space Research Institute found evidence of water underneath the cosmic tectonic fracture using the ESA-Roscosmos ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) probe, reports Alex Wilkins forNew Scientist.

Launched in 2016, TGO detected and mapped hydrogen in the top meter of Martian soil using an instrument dubbed Fine Resolution Epithermal Neutron Detector (FREND), reports Meghan Bartels forSpace.com. By detecting neutrons instead of light, the instrument peers through the Red Planet's dust to search for water reservoirs not picked up by other equipment. FREND can measure the hydrogen content of Mars'soil up to a meter below the surface,Science Alertreports.

"Neutrons are produced when highly energetic particles known as 'galactic cosmic rays' strike Mars; drier soils emit more neutrons than wetter ones, and so we can deduce how much water is in a soil by looking at the neutrons it emits," saysco-author Alexey Malakhov, a sceintist at the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in a statement.

Using TGO's datafrom May 2018 toFebruary 2021, the team found a large amount of hydrogen beneath the surface ofMars'version of the Grand Canyon, called Candor Chaos. If all of that hydrogen is bound into water molecules, a subsurface regionabout the size of the Netherlandscould beabout 40 percent water, explains the study's lead author Igor Mitrofanov of the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, who is principal investigator of FREND, in a statement.

"We found a central part of Valles Marineris to be packed full of water far more water than we expected," Malakhov said in a statement. "This is very much like Earth's permafrost regions, where water ice permanently persists under dry soil because of the constant low temperatures."

The water, however, does not appear as abundant liquid lakes found on Earth. Instead, scientists suspectthe Martian dustis riddled with ice or water bonded to minerals,CNN'sAshley Strickland reports. Minerals in this region, however, are not know to contain much water. While ice may seem more likely based on what researchers know about other potential sources of hydrogen on Mars, the temperatures and pressure conditions in the Valles Marineris, situated just below the Martian equator, prohibit the formation of these types of water preserves,Science Alertreports.

There may be special geologic conditions that allow the water to be replenished and remain in this region, CNN reports. Researchers plan on deciphering what type of water lies within the canyon's grooves and how it remains by planning future missions that will focus on lower latitudes in this region.

"Knowing more about how and where water exists on present-day Mars is essential to understand what happened to Mars's once-abundant water, and helps our search for habitable environments, possible signs of past life, and organic materials from Mars's earliest days," saysESA physicistColin Wilsonin a statement.

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Beneath Canyons on Mars, Astronomers Find Potentially 'Water-Rich Area the Size of the Netherlands' - Smithsonian

A scientist from the University of Stirling in Scotland will be one of the first to pilot the European Space Agencys Mars rover when it launches next year.

The Rosalind Franklin rover will be on a mission to find life on the Red Planet when it arrives in June 2023.

It is the first to carry a drill long enough to explore molecules up to two metres below the surface, where they would be protected from the harsh radiation on the planets surface.

Dr Christian Schrder is one of five Guest Investigators who will join a panel of scientists from of different disciplines from Europe, Russia and Canada.

They will play a leading role in commanding the rover once it lands at the selected site of Oxia Planum on Mars.

The rover will spend a minimum of 211 sols (Martian days), equivalent to 230 Earth days, searching for organic carbon molecules that could tell us whether there was ever life on Mars.

Schrder was previously part of the team operating Nasas twin Mars exploration rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, from 2003 to 2019.

The mission established the past presence of liquid water on the Martian surface the most important prerequisite for life.

Over the last two decades we have learned that there was plenty of liquid water on Mars more than 3.5 billion years ago at that time, Earth and Mars were very similar and life was already well established on Earth, Schrder said.

So its conceivable that there was life on Mars, too. But even if we find the right signs, was that life independent of life on Earth? Or was it the result of meteorite exchange between Earth and Mars?

If it was independent and life originated twice within our solar system - then the universe could be swarming with life. If not, that would be less likely.

He added that he is specifically interested in the interaction between iron minerals and carbon molecules, which can give an indication of the kind of life there might have been.

He said: Radiation destroys the organic molecules on and near the surface so its important that, for the first time on a rover, ExoMars 2022 has a drill that can go two metres underground.

Once the Rosalind Franklin has landed, the rovers pilots will be based at the Rover Operation Control Centre in Turin, Italy, where the team will guide the rover over the surface of Mars.

It carries nine scientific instruments to locate the best sites for drilling and analyse the retrieved samples.

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UK scientist to pilot the European Space Agency's Mars rover - E&T Magazine

Teachers, educators, and community members throughout the U.S. can nominate their favorite students in Grades 6 to 8 who have demonstrated that they have the right stuff to move past obstacles and reach their academic goals to NASAs Youve Got Perseverance awards opportunity.

The program, NASA says, will reward students whove shown that dedication with recognition all the way from Mars, courtesy of the space agencys Perseverance Rover.

The JPL Mars Rover team will honor these students by sending them personal messages beamed by the Rover from the Red Planets Jezero Crater, which it has been exploring since landing in February 2021.

Getting NASAs heaviest, most sophisticated Rover yet onto the surface of a planet hundreds of millions of miles away is a remarkable feat unto itself, Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of the agencys Science Mission Directorate, said. But to do so in spite of the safety restrictions during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic required extraordinary perseverance. And so does forging ahead as a student when the pandemic dramatically altered so much of your day-to-day life.

Teachers and community members have four opportunities to nominate students for the Youve Got Perseverance program.

Perseverance is the most complex robotic system weve ever sent to another planet, Perseverance Project Manager Jennifer Trosper of NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena said.

It has to autonomously drive five times faster than any other Mars Rover and use its science instruments to carefully select and then collect over 30 samples for pickup by a future mission, Trosper continued.

When sending instructions to Perseverance, engineers can command the Rover to echo a message back to Earth. NASAs Curiosity Rover, which has been on Mars since 2012, used the method to welcome Perseverance when it landed.

We also wanted to give some young students the opportunity to talk to our team and ask questions, said Trosper.

When the personalized messages are transmitted from Mars, the students will have a chance to share the experience with family and their classrooms via a live video chat with Perseverance Rover team members in mission control at JPL. Trosper hopes that connecting students with her team will help them see how the scientists and engineers also face challenging situations and succeed through perseverance.

The Rover brought up to seven new science instruments to Mars, including a technology demonstration to generate oxygen from the Martian atmosphere, plus the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter.

After all the planning, designing, and most of the spacecraft building, we had to dramatically change how we worked because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Trosper said. To stay safe, most team members, including Trosper herself, teleworked.

We had to finish the development and testing, as well as operate this complex Rover, with much of the team working remotely. It was almost to the point where you wondered, Is this really doable? But we just kept moving forward, faced head-on whatever issue came up, and overcame each challenge, one by one, she said.

Now the team wants to encourage the next generation to persevere in the same way to embrace the idea of overcoming seemingly impossible challenges.

Nomination windows for the Youve Got Perseverance award are planned throughout the 2021-2022 school year. Selection will be made through a lottery, with entries screened to ensure they meet the criteria. All nominated students can receive a certificate to acknowledge their perseverance.

To find out how to nominate students, visit https://go.nasa.gov/gotperseverance.

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Outstanding Students Can Get Messages Beamed to Them By The Mars Rover Pasadena Now - Pasadena Now

Ultra-short-period planets are small, compact worlds that whip around their stars at close range, completing an orbit and a single, scorching year in less than 24 hours. How these planets came to be in such extreme configurations is one of the continuing mysteries of exoplanetary science.

Now, astronomers have discovered an ultra-short-period planet (USP) that is also super light, reports MIT News. The planet is named GJ 367 b, and it orbits its star in just eight hours. The planet is about the size of Mars, and half as massive as the Earth, making it one of the lightest planets discovered to date.

Orbiting a nearby star that is 31 light years from our own sun, GJ 367 b is close enough that researchers could pin down properties of the planet that were not possible with previously detected USPs. For instance, the team determined that GJ 376 b is a rocky planet and likely contains a solid core of iron and nickel, similar to Mercurys interior.

Due to its extreme proximity to its star, the astronomers estimate GJ 376 b is blasted with 500 times more radiation than what the Earth receives from the sun. As a result, the planets dayside boils at up to 1,500 degrees Celsius. Under such extreme temperatures, any substantial atmosphere would have long vaporized away, along with any signs of life, at least as we know it.

But there is a chance that the planet has habitable partners. Its star is a red dwarf, or M dwarf a type of star that typically hosts multiple planets. The discovery of GJ 367 b around such a star points to the possibility for more planets in this system, which could help scientists understand the origins of GJ 376 b and other ultra-short-period planets.

For this class of star, the habitable zone would be somewhere near a month-long orbit, says team member George Ricker, senior research scientist in MITs Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research. Since this star is so close by, and so bright, we have a good chance of seeing other planets in this system. Its like theres a sign saying, Look here for extra planets!

The teams results appear today in the journalScience. The study was led by researchers from the Institute of Planetary Research at the German Aerospace Center, in collaboration with an international group of researchers, including MIT co-authors Ricker, Roland Vanderspek, and Sara Seager.

Transit tests

The new planet was discovered by NASAs Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), an MIT-led mission, of which Ricker is principal investigator. TESS monitors the sky for changes in brightness of the nearest stars. Scientists look through TESS data for transits, or periodic dips in starlight that indicate a planet is crossing and briefly blocking a stars light.

For about a month in 2019, TESS recorded a patch of the southern sky that included the star GJ 376. Scientists at MIT and elsewhere analyzed the data, and detected a transiting object with an ultra-short, eight-hour orbit. They ran several tests to make sure the signal was not from a false positive source such as a foreground or background eclipsing binary star.

After confirming the object was indeed an ultra-short-period planet, they then observed the planets star more closely, using the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS), an instrument installed on the European Southern Observatorys telescope in Chile.

From these measurements, they determined the planet to be among the lightest planets discovered to date, with a radius that is 72 percent, and a mass that is 55 percent, that of Earths. Such dimensions indicate that the planet likely has an iron-rich core.

The researchers then whittled down various possibilities for the planets interior composition and found the scenario that best fit the data showed that an iron core likely makes up 86 percent of the planets interior, similar to the makeup of Mercury.

Were finding a Mars-sized planet that has the composition of Mercury, says Vanderspek, principal research scientist at MIT. Its among the smallest planets detected to date, and its spinning around an M dwarf on a very tight orbit.

As scientists continue to study GJ 367 b and its star, they hope to detect signals of other planets in the system. The properties of these planets such as their spacing and orbital orientation could provide clues to how GJ 367 b and other ultra-short-period planets came to be.

Understanding how these planets get so close to their host stars is a bit of a detective story, says TESS team member Natalia Guerrero. Why is this planet missing its outer atmosphere? How did it move close in? Was this process peaceful or violent? Hopefully this system will give us a little more insight.

This research was supported in part by NASA.

Republished with permission ofMIT News. Read theoriginal article.

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TESS discovers a planet the size of Mars but with the makeup of Mercury - Big Think

(Sentinel Photo by Allen Hamil)Ground was broken in Merrill at the site of the trailhead for the portion of the PlyWood Trail heading north towards Le Mars. Donors, civic leaders and other supporters of the trail were on hand for the ceremony on Tuesday afternoon.

MERRILL The PlyWood Trail Foundation held a groundbreaking ceremony on Tuesday in Merrill.

Ryan Meyer, the Executive Director of the PlyWood Trail Foundation, said the day marks the end of the beginning part of the project.

We are very excited to be here this afternoon for our official groundbreaking ceremony, Meyer told a crowd of people gathered for the event. For those of you who have been with us since the beginning of this journey, this goes back to even pre-2015 so were seven years into this. This moment, we just want to pause and reflect. It marks a culmination of an extreme amount of work.

The groundbreaking took place at the spot which is to be turned into a trailhead for the portion of the trail which leaves Merrill to the north toward Le Mars.

Phase 1A of the project goes from the north side of Merrill over the Floyd River and ends just north of the river. The Phase 1A portion includes a pedestrian bridge over the river with the total length of Phase 1A being just under half a mile.

Work is expected to begin in the coming weeks as dirt will be moved to build up the banks on both sides of the Floyd River in preparation for a bridge that will be installed in the spring. After the bridge is in place, work to install storm sewers along with the grading and installation of the concrete trail and trailhead will occur.

On July 6, the Le Mars City Council awarded the bid for the 1A phase of the project to Godbersen-Smith at a cost of $1,513,754.24. No tax dollars are being spent as it will be funded by the PlyWood Trail Foundation and the funding sources that have donated to it.

The foundation has raised over $4 million to support the project from a combination of public and private sources. They have also sought out grants to help fund the trail.

Meyer thanked several donors including Mike Wells, whom he asked to say a few words.

Ive looked forward to this day for a long, long time, Wells told the crowd. As many of you know, Im a triathlete, Im an avid biker and Im super excited to be able to have the opportunity to have access to safe trails and continue to do the things that I love to do.

(Sentinel Photo by Allen Hamil)Mike Wells addresses the crowd gathered at the groundbreaking ceremony.

Phase 1B of the project is then expected to extend from that point to the intersection of C-38 and Key Avenue where the Le Mars Recreation Trail ends.

On Aug. 3, the Le Mars City Council approved an agreement for engineering services for Phases 1A and 1B with McClure Engineering at a cost of $231,800. The city of Le Mars was expected to pay the invoices to McClure, with the PlyWood Trail Executive Committee then reimbursing the city.

The full PlyWood Trail project is intended to connect Le Mars, Merrill, Hinton and Sioux City along an approximately 16-mile long stretch.

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Local News: Breaking ground on the PlyWood Trail (12/21/21) - Le Mars Daily Sentinel

Mars has its own version of the Grand Canyon, and scientists have learned this dramatic feature is home to "significant amounts of water" after a discovery made by an orbiter circling the red planet, according to the European Space Agency.The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, launched in 2016 as a joint mission between the European Space Agency and Roscosmos, detected the water in Valles Marineris on Mars. This canyon system is 10 times longer, five times deeper and 20 times wider than the Grand Canyon.The water is located beneath the surface of the canyon system and was detected by the orbiter's FREND instrument, or Fine Resolution Epithermal Neutron Detector. This instrument is able to map hydrogen in the top meter (3.28 feet) of Martian soil.Most water on Mars is located in the planet's polar regions and remains frozen as water ice. Valles Marineris is just south of the planet's equator, where temperatures typically aren't cold enough for water ice to remain.The observations were collected by the orbiter between May 2018 to February 2021. Previously, other orbiters have searched for water just beneath the Martian surface and detected small amounts under Martian dust. A study detailing the findings was published Wednesday in the journal Icarus."With (the Trace Gas Orbiter) we can look down to one metre below this dusty layer and see what's really going on below Mars' surface -- and, crucially, locate water-rich 'oases' that couldn't be detected with previous instruments," said study author Igor Mitrofanov, principal investigator of the FREND neutron telescope, in a statement."FREND revealed an area with an unusually large amount of hydrogen in the colossal Valles Marineris canyon system: assuming the hydrogen we see is bound into water molecules, as much as 40% of the near-surface material in this region appears to be water."To put that into perspective, this area is about the size of the Netherlands. It overlaps with Candor Chaos, a network of valleys within the canyon system.The FREND instrument searches for neutrons to map hydrogen content in the Martian soil."We can deduce how much water is in a soil by looking at the neutrons it emits," said study coauthor Alexey Malakhov, a senior scientist at the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in a statement.That's because "neutrons are produced when highly energetic particles known as 'galactic cosmic rays' strike Mars; drier soils emit more neutrons than wetter ones," he said in the same statement."We found a central part of Valles Marineris to be packed full of water -- far more water than we expected. This is very much like Earth's permafrost regions, where water ice permanently persists under dry soil because of the constant low temperatures."The instrument's unique observational capabilities allowed the team to detect water that remained hidden before, Malakhov said. This could be water ice or water that is attached to minerals within the soil. But the scientists believe the presence of ice is more likely because the minerals at this location contain little water.There are higher temperatures near the equator on Mars, so the researchers believe there must be some special blend of conditions that allow the water to remain and be replenished."This finding is an amazing first step, but we need more observations to know for sure what form of water we're dealing with," said study coauthor Hkan Svedhem, a former project scientist for the orbiter, in a statement."The finding demonstrates the unrivalled abilities of TGO's instruments in enabling us to 'see' below Mars' surface -- and reveals a large, not-too-deep, easily exploitable reservoir of water in this region of Mars."Future missions to Mars will land at lower latitudes. This discovery in Valles Marineris highlights the feature as an intriguing place for potential human exploration in the years ahead, especially because this water would be much more accessible than other previously discovered subsurface water sources."Knowing more about how and where water exists on present-day Mars is essential to understand what happened to Mars' once-abundant water, and helps our search for habitable environments, possible signs of past life, and organic materials from Mars' earliest days," said Colin Wilson, ESA's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter project scientist, in a statement.In 2022, the European Rosalind Franklin rover and Russian surface platform Kazachok will launch and is expected to land on Mars in 2023. The rover will drill beneath the surface of Mars in search of organic material that could reveal if Mars ever hosted life. The rover will explore Oxia Planum, a site of exposed, ancient clay-rich rocks that were once exposed to water.

Mars has its own version of the Grand Canyon, and scientists have learned this dramatic feature is home to "significant amounts of water" after a discovery made by an orbiter circling the red planet, according to the European Space Agency.

The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, launched in 2016 as a joint mission between the European Space Agency and Roscosmos, detected the water in Valles Marineris on Mars. This canyon system is 10 times longer, five times deeper and 20 times wider than the Grand Canyon.

The water is located beneath the surface of the canyon system and was detected by the orbiter's FREND instrument, or Fine Resolution Epithermal Neutron Detector. This instrument is able to map hydrogen in the top meter (3.28 feet) of Martian soil.

Most water on Mars is located in the planet's polar regions and remains frozen as water ice. Valles Marineris is just south of the planet's equator, where temperatures typically aren't cold enough for water ice to remain.

The observations were collected by the orbiter between May 2018 to February 2021. Previously, other orbiters have searched for water just beneath the Martian surface and detected small amounts under Martian dust. A study detailing the findings was published Wednesday in the journal Icarus.

"With (the Trace Gas Orbiter) we can look down to one metre below this dusty layer and see what's really going on below Mars' surface -- and, crucially, locate water-rich 'oases' that couldn't be detected with previous instruments," said study author Igor Mitrofanov, principal investigator of the FREND neutron telescope, in a statement.

"FREND revealed an area with an unusually large amount of hydrogen in the colossal Valles Marineris canyon system: assuming the hydrogen we see is bound into water molecules, as much as 40% of the near-surface material in this region appears to be water."

Handout via Getty Images

To put that into perspective, this area is about the size of the Netherlands. It overlaps with Candor Chaos, a network of valleys within the canyon system.

The FREND instrument searches for neutrons to map hydrogen content in the Martian soil.

"We can deduce how much water is in a soil by looking at the neutrons it emits," said study coauthor Alexey Malakhov, a senior scientist at the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in a statement.

That's because "neutrons are produced when highly energetic particles known as 'galactic cosmic rays' strike Mars; drier soils emit more neutrons than wetter ones," he said in the same statement.

"We found a central part of Valles Marineris to be packed full of water -- far more water than we expected. This is very much like Earth's permafrost regions, where water ice permanently persists under dry soil because of the constant low temperatures."

The instrument's unique observational capabilities allowed the team to detect water that remained hidden before, Malakhov said. This could be water ice or water that is attached to minerals within the soil. But the scientists believe the presence of ice is more likely because the minerals at this location contain little water.

There are higher temperatures near the equator on Mars, so the researchers believe there must be some special blend of conditions that allow the water to remain and be replenished.

"This finding is an amazing first step, but we need more observations to know for sure what form of water we're dealing with," said study coauthor Hkan Svedhem, a former project scientist for the orbiter, in a statement.

"The finding demonstrates the unrivalled abilities of TGO's instruments in enabling us to 'see' below Mars' surface -- and reveals a large, not-too-deep, easily exploitable reservoir of water in this region of Mars."

Future missions to Mars will land at lower latitudes. This discovery in Valles Marineris highlights the feature as an intriguing place for potential human exploration in the years ahead, especially because this water would be much more accessible than other previously discovered subsurface water sources.

"Knowing more about how and where water exists on present-day Mars is essential to understand what happened to Mars' once-abundant water, and helps our search for habitable environments, possible signs of past life, and organic materials from Mars' earliest days," said Colin Wilson, ESA's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter project scientist, in a statement.

In 2022, the European Rosalind Franklin rover and Russian surface platform Kazachok will launch and is expected to land on Mars in 2023. The rover will drill beneath the surface of Mars in search of organic material that could reveal if Mars ever hosted life. The rover will explore Oxia Planum, a site of exposed, ancient clay-rich rocks that were once exposed to water.

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'Significant amounts of water' found in Mars' massive version of the Grand Canyon - KCRA Sacramento

Mars has introduced purpose measurement with its senior leaders and board bonused against the delivery of its purpose and sustainability initiatives.

Alongside financial performance and future growth the confectionery and pet care behemoth now measures its positive impact on people, their pets, and the planet and whether it has met its corporate commitments.

Referred to as the Mars Compass, all brands are guided by this measurement system, which incorporates brand score reporting.

Mars lead chief marketing officer, Jane Wakely, told The Drum measuring impact on purpose is incredibly tough due to a lack of measurement infrastructure.

Developing measurement tools for purpose is now a key priority for Mars. So far, the brand has partnered with Oxford Universitys Economics of Mutuality Lab to design an impact measurement system. For example, the system would show how successful a dog adoption campaign from pet food Pedigree was and measure the effectiveness of rehoming dogs.

Internally Mars Petcare has developed the global state pet homeless index to measure to understand the scale of pet homelessness around the world. This is the sort of infrastructure you need to put in if you are going to measure making a difference of scale, Wakely says.

The removal of on-screen stereotypes is another area Mars management is measured on, for this Mars has its content audited annually by the Geena Davis Institute. Examples of where Mars has counted positive impact is the closing of the gap between male and female representation in the kitchen which in 2018 was five times more likely to be a female.

On its sustainability pledges, management is rewarded for meeting commitments such as Royal Canins carbon neutral by 2025 pledge; Mars bars in the UK, Canada, and Ireland will be carbon neutral by 2023; and Shebas coral reef regrow project will restore more than 185,000 square meters of coral reef by 2029.

Consumers are expecting ever more transparency and ever more performance from brands in terms of matching their values, Wakely added.

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Mars introduces purpose measurement to brand scores and bonuses - The Drum