Category Archives: Mars

An instant boost of energy is really what we need to knockout Tuesday blues today and in the quest for the same, we landed with a recipe of Mars Energy Bar. Looking for snack bars that are great to binge and have got the right balance of protein, carbs and fiber? Search no further as we got you sorted with this easy homemade recipe of Mars Energy Bar.

Ingredients for base:

1/2 cup almonds

1/2 cup cashews

3 tbsp ground flaxseed in place

1 tbsp maple syrup or honey

2 tbsp filtered water

1/4 tsp cinnamon

Pinch sea salt

Ingredients for filling:

3/4 cup almond butter

1/2 cup melted coconut oil

2 1/2 tbsp maple syrup

1/4 cup filtered water

Ingredients for chocolate covering:

3/4 dark chocolate bar (or sub 1/3-1/2 cup chocolate chips)

1 tsp melted coconut oil

Pinch sea salt

3 tbsp raspberry powder (optional )

Method:

In a food processor, pulse together base ingredients until it reaches a dough-like consistency.

Press into base of parchment paper covered loaf tin and freeze for 10 minutes while you make filling.

In same food processor, pulse together filling ingredients. Pour over the top of the chilled base and freeze once more for about 1-2 hours, or until firm.

Using a knife, cut into rectangles. Melt chocolate bar + coconut oil in a medium bowl, then dip frozen bars until fully covered. Place on parchment paper, sprinkle with sea salt & raspberry powder and pop back in the freezer to harden! Enjoy!

(Recipe: Maya Pereira Sawant, owner of Lean Kitchen by Maya)

Benefits:

Almonds are packed with healthy fats, fiber, protein, magnesium and vitamin E and not only reduce hunger while promoting weight loss but also lower blood sugar levels and cholesterol levels along with reducing blood pressure. According to a study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, eating almonds in place of typical snacks may reduce the drop in heart rate variability (HRV) that occurs during mental stress, thereby improving cardiac function.

Consumption of dry fruits enhances energy and stamina. As they are rich in fibre, it provides better digestion.

Milled flaxseeds improve digestive health, lower blood pressure and bad cholesterol. They may benefit people with diabetes and also reduce the risk of cancer.

Maple syrup extract may dramatically increase the potency of antibiotics according to researchers at McGill University in Canada. Another study claims that consuming pure maple syrup extract may help protect against Alzheimers disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a neurodegenerative disorder affecting motor neurons and maintain neuronal integrity during aging.

This super easy and healthy recipe is packed with health benefits and serves as an energy-rich snack that can be consumed daily.

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Recipe: This Mars Energy Bar is all you need to knockout Tuesday blues - Hindustan Times

NASA's Mars helicopter Ingenuity has soared through the Red Planet skies yet again.

The little chopper just completed its 15th Martian sortie, officials with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, which manages the Mars helicopter Ingenuity mission, announced via Twitter Monday night (Nov. 8).

"It flew for 128.8 seconds. Preliminary localization places us within our targeted landing zone. Ingenuity opportunistically took images of science interest and they'll be processed soon," JPL officials wrote in the tweet.

Related: It's getting harder to fly the Ingenuity helicopter on Mars

That tweet did not state when the hop took place, but mission photos show it occurred on Saturday (Nov. 6). That's the date the helicopter's handlers had been targeting, as Ingenuity team lead Teddy Tzanetos of JPL wrote in a blog post published on Friday (Nov. 5),

Tzanetos also laid out the flight plan in that post, stating that Ingenuity would cover 1,332 feet (406 meters) of horizontal distance, travel at 11.1 mph (17.9 kph) and fly about 39 feet (12 m) above the ground.

Ingenuity touched down with NASA's Perseverance rover on the floor of the 28-mile-wide (45 kilometers) Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, on a mission to demonstrate that aerial exploration of the Red Planet is feasible.

The 4-pound (1.8 kilograms) copter did just that during a series of five initial flights, then embarked on an extended mission during which it has been performing scouting work for Perseverance. Ingenuity has recently been studying a patch of Jezero called South Stah, but flight 15 began a journey back toward Wright Brothers Field, the site of the rotorcraft's first-ever Martian flight.

It will take a total of four to seven flights to return to Wright Brothers Field, Tzanetos wrote in Friday's blog post. "Along the way, the project is considering preparing a flight software upgrade for our helicopter which will potentially enable new navigation capabilities onboard, and better prepare Ingenuity for the challenges ahead," he wrote.

Perseverance will do some similar backtracking. After getting to Wright Brothers Field, the two robotic explorers will travel north together up the east side of the Seitah region. They'll then head west toward the edge of the ancient river delta that made Jezero such an attractive landing spot for the life-hunting Perseverance, Tzanetos wrote.

Flight 15 was Ingenuity's second since solar conjunction, a two-week stretch during which the sun comes between Mars and Earth. NASA stops commanding its Red Planet robots during this time, because our star can corrupt interplanetary communications.

The recent flight was also the second in which Ingenuity spun its rotors at 2,700 revolutions per minute (RPM), compared to about 2,500 RPM on the first 13 flights. The increase was necessitated by a seasonal shift on Jezero's floor; it's summer there now, and the air is less dense than it was before, Ingenuity team members have explained.

"This flight will generate critical high-RPM motor performance, which the team will use to design and tailor upcoming low-density flights in the months ahead," Tzanetos wrote in Friday's blog post.

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

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Mars helicopter Ingenuity aces 15th Red Planet flight - Space.com

Anderson Paak and Bruno Mars of music group Silk Sonic perform onstage during the 63rd Annual GRAMMY Awards broadcast on March 14, 2021. Credit: Courtesy of Theo Wargo/Getty Images for The Recording Academy/TNS

Silk Sonics debut album is as smooth as its name, presenting listeners with a treasure trove of luscious vocals, lively instrumentals and a whole lot of nostalgia.

Magic happened when Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak stepped into the studio for their debut duo project, An Evening With Silk Sonic, released Friday. Opening with a James Brown-inspired count-in, disco claps and an introduction from the albums narrator, funk legend and Parliament-Funkadelic bassist Bootsy Collins, listeners are brought right into the action of the early 70s kicking drums, thumping bass, dreamy chord progressions and all.

The album is a no-skipper. Running at just over 31 minutes, the short project is bursting with color and movement, leaving predictability in the past for this duo.

Mars has been topping the charts since the 2010s, making his mark through naturally intimate and rich vocals that sound like hes singing just on the edge of his vocal range. Its mind-blowing that his voice is still so smooth on top of all of his in-song pleading.

Although .Paak is considered to be more of a rapper, this project clearly highlights his vocal capabilities. In a 2016 interview with NPR, he explained that the dot in front of his last name stands for detail, which is evident in his contributions to this deliberate project.

Leave the Door Open, the duos first single released March 5, pairs soft, crooning falsetto with punchy belting a Mars speciality. Serving as the first project for both Mars and .Paak since 2016 and 2019, respectively, this return was no less than groundbreaking.

Picking up where Mars left off with his last album, 24K Magic, slap bass is coupled with humorous, rowdy lines in Fly As Me. The boisterous track brings a contemporary sound that parallels artists such as Kool & The Gang and James Brown.

In comes After Last Night (with Thundercat and Bootsy Collins), which is an entire production. On top of dreamy glockenspiel chimes and the wiggly bass of Thundercat, the tight harmonies send chills down the spine.

The whole album follows the ups and downs of infatuation. Smokin Out The Window introduces heartbreak, but with plushness that makes being duped in a relationship seem romantic.

The only sad ballad on the record is Put On A Smile, but the duo manages to make sure it does not drag. Reminiscent of Marvin Gayes Distant Lover, the rolling drums and down-on-my-knees-pleading vocals ground the track.

777 comes in hot as a standout track. The distorted guitar on top of kicking drums make it clear that this is a .Paak song, but Mars gets his fix with some horns and tambourine during the chorus.

Switching the setting to the roller rink, Skate is a flirty, light summer anthem. The instrumentation on this track is full and varied, but does not take away from the floatiness of the verses.

Rounding out the album is Blast Off, an Earth, Wind & Fire-esque track. The angelic harmonies pair beautifully with the dreamy imagery created by the lyrics.

The art of the throwback is not an easy feat, especially when going for a cohesive album, but this highly anticipated project did not disappoint. Mars and .Paak skillfully place the cherry on top of this 70s spaceship with attention to detail and a wholly unique sound.

Rating: 5/5

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Album review: Mars and .Paak bring back '70s funk on 'An Evening With Silk Sonic' - OSU - The Lantern

Non-fungible tokens have become one of the hottest topics within and outside of the blockchain sector. Besides the fact that they make the verification of authenticity and the transfer of assets more efficient, they are also lucrative. Thanks to NFTs, the idea of making money from digital holdings like memes, tweets, and so on is now a real possibility. This thirst for financially rewarding digital assets has spilled into the gaming world and has birthed the play-to-earn genre of gaming, attracting millions in the process.

This new trend is an evolution of the NFT gaming trend and has become a booming sensation since late 2020, peaking in mid-2021. Play-to-earn games are a form of NFT gaming where you get rewards for playing certain games; you also get items in the games that you can exchange for money.

The popularity of these games increased due to Axie Infinity, one of the pioneer games of the play-to-earn games genre. Axie Infinity is a type of Pokemon game with over 1 million daily active users. Axie players can trade in their collected Axies as NFTs and also collect the little love potions that can be exchanged for SLP cryptocurrency. While Axie Infinity has started the trend of play-to-earn games, there are many other competitors in the market. Decentraland, The Sandbox, My Neighbor Alice, GALA, and SpaceY2025 have ushered in the new era of play-to-earn games.

SpaceY2025 is one of the latest NFT games offering a new gaming experience that goes beyond just collecting NFT cards. SpaceY2025 is a AAA tower defense game, with shiny graphical fidelity and design, which is set on an ever-evolving version of Mars. Each month players are offered a new season and a new map, facing the challenge to build a base and then create defense towers and locations around it. Besides, there are new missions, battles and challenges every day. These are the main source for acquiring items from other players, as well as mining ores on Mars.

The main trading aspect of the game revolves around the NFT cards, which let players acquire spaceship tickets, land, towers, gems and buildings. The market transaction fee for these items is said to be between 1-5%. There are also mystery boxes in the game that contain special NFT items. These items all have special properties such as attack, defense, range, gem bonus, building speed, etc. Whether you want to use them or trade them for NFT is entirely up to you.

The great thing about SpaceY2025 is that it is quite different from other games that you can earn. This is a game that actually looks modern. The graphic quality is absolutely stunning, with some of the most breathtaking landscapes you can find.

In conclusion, play-to-earn games have managed to take the Internet by storm. Millions of players are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to participate, trade, and create a place for themselves in the metaverse. We live in a unique time where the digital world collides with the real world, and players are here to take advantage of it with SpaceY2025!

Now you can get early access to SpaceY 2025 and become a colonist and defender of Mars.

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SPACEY2025: 3D Tower Defense Game That Takes You to the Metaverse on Mars - Bitcoinist

Days after the Russian director, actor duo returned from the International Space Station (ISS) after shooting the first film beyond Earth, director Klim Shipenko said that he was up for making a movie on the moon or even Mars. The Russian director stayed on the Space Station for 12 days shooting a sequence for the film titled "The Challenge".

The Russian director said that his 12-day-long stay on the flying outpost transformed his ideas about the possibilities of cinema. "We're ready. We believe space cinema should be filmed in space. If it's about the moon, let's go to the moon, if it's Mars, let's go to Mars. Why not? Why should cinema be filmed in a studio?" Shipenko told a news conference.

Shipenko and actress Yulia Peresild returned to Earth on Sunday after gathering more than 30 hours of material for "The Challenge", billed as the first space movie and hailed by Russian media as a world-beating achievement. Shipenko said the crew aboard the ISS had joined in the filming, contributing their own "organic" dialogue, as well as holding him by the feet to stop him bumping into things.

According to reports, the film follows a doctor who flies to the ISS on short notice to give life-saving care to a cosmonaut. "Every second was a big discovery," said Peresild, who plays the doctor in the film. Before going for launch preparation, Yulia Peresild, who became the first actor in space, had said that for the first two seconds its scary, after that, its beautiful.

Yulia Peresild became first actor to shoot a film in space.

"Some scenes that I imagined one way on earth came together completely differently... People can be face to face (in space) but one of them is head up and the other is horizontal and the camera can be on a different plane, and that transforms your consciousness completely," Shipenko said in the news conference.

He added, "For me it was a cinematic discovery, to realise scenes in a completely different way in three or four planes." The work on the film will continue until the end of next year, and the space scenes would probably make up 25 to 35 minutes of the final cut. He said no date had been set for the release but there might be advance teasers from the space segment.

"The project will become clear evidence that space flights are gradually becoming available not only for professionals but also for an ever wider range of interested persons," the website of the film said. While the cost of the mission has not been disclosed, Shipenko said there was huge international interest. "I think if the film goes out at a world level it will pay for its budget, and the task of this film was to do that," he said.

Amid the glowing fanfare for American companies like Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos Blue Origin, Russia has managed to squeeze the limelight while beating Nasa at being the first space agency to film in space.

Nasa had last year announced that it will work with Tom Cruise to film a sequence on the Space Station. "Nasa is excited to work with Tom Cruise on a film aboard the Space Station! We need popular media to inspire a new generation of engineers and scientists to make Nasas ambitious plans a reality," then Nasa administrator Jim Bridenstine had said in 2020.

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Ready to film on Moon and Mars, says Russian director ...

NASA's Perseverance Mars rover has emerged from its first "solar conjunction" blackout and gotten back to work on the Red Planet. It's even phoned home with its first Mars photos since reawakening.

The car-sized Perseverance and other Mars spacecraft had to stand down for about two weeks recently when the Red Planet slipped behind the sun from Earth's perspective. In this alignment, known as solar conjunction, our star can corrupt commands sent from Earth to Mars, so NASA and other space agencies don't take the chance.

But Mars has come back into view for mission controls around the world, including that of Perseverance, which is based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. So the six-wheeled robot has woken up and resumed exploring Jezero Crater, a 28-mile-wide (45 kilometers) hole in the ground that hosted a lake and a river delta billions of years ago.

Related: Where to find the latest Mars photos from NASA's Perseverance rover

"Im back to work, parked between these two beautiful outcrops. Been doing some imaging, weather studies, chemistry experiments and getting a software update too," mission team members wrote on Monday (Oct. 25) via Perseverance's official Twitter account.

That post included two gorgeous recent photos of the terrain that Perseverance is traversing. The rover has snapped many more as well since waking up, and you can find them here.

Perseverance touched down on Feb. 18, tasked primarily with hunting for signs of ancient Mars life and collecting dozens of samples for future return to Earth. The rover has already socked away two tubes of pristine Mars material, getting humanity's first interplanetary sample-return effort well and truly underway.

Perseverance landed with a tiny helicopter buddy named Ingenuity, which was designed to show that aerial exploration is feasible on the Red Planet. Ingenuity is also back in action, completing its 14th Martian flight on Sunday (Oct. 24).

After its first five technology-demonstrating flights, Ingenuity shifted into an extended mission designed to showcase the scouting potential of Martian rotorcraft. The 4-pound (1.8 kilograms) chopper has recently been scouting terrain for Perseverance, which has driven 1.66 miles (2.67 kilometers) on Jezero's floor to date.

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

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Perseverance rover snaps first Mars photos after communications blackout. They're stunning. - Space.com

No matter how advanced our civilization here on Earth becomes, theres a sobering fact we have no choice but to reckon with: Earths resources are finite. That not only includes the resources we typically think of, like minerals, clean water, and breathable air, but also something even more fundamental and restrictive: land area. No matter how thoroughly we develop, theres only a finite amount of continental land area to inhabit on our planet.

While floating cities on the seas and oceans may someday become a possibility, the finite surface area of planet Earth ensures that, beyond a certain point, well need to leave our home planet if we want our civilization to continue to grow. Although many of us have dreamed of living on another world, we have yet to find even a hint of life on a world beyond Earth, much less a fully inhabited planet or one habitable by humans. If we want a world to be suitable for us to live on, it looks like our only option will be to transform a presently uninhabitable planet into one that humans can survive on a process called terraforming. Despite the popular sentiment that Mars is the right world to terraform within our solar system, there may be an even better option closer to home: the Moon. Heres the science of why.

At first glance, it might appear that Mars is much better suited for terraforming than the Moon. After all, Mars already has large quantities of water on it: in both the solid and gaseous phases. Mars had a past where liquid water was rife on the surface, and probably spent more than the first billion years of its existence with oceans and rivers throughout its surface. Mars is larger and more massive than the Moon; it has a higher gravitational acceleration than the Moon does at its surface; and its atmosphere, while thin, is rich in carbon dioxide.

Despite the popular sentiment that Mars is the right world to terraform within our solar system, there may be an even better option closer to home: the Moon.

But Mars also faces issues that the Moon doesnt. For one, Mars is farther from the Sun, meaning that we receive less energy from the Sun on every square meter of area. For another, Marss atmosphere is a tremendous hazard, with high winds, routine sandstorms, and terrain that changes as readily as sand dunes do on Earth. Mars, having no protective magnetic field like Earth does, is also subjected to bombardment by solar wind particles. If anyone living on the surface didnt want to be given a lethal dose of radiation on timescales far, far less than a human lifetime, they would have to move underground: a possibility afforded only by the copious existence ofenormous lava tubes on Mars.

None of these are insurmountable obstacles, of course; with a large enough investment of resources, practically anything is possible. But the more resources you have to bring with you both to survive and thrive in the new environment and also to protect you from the harmful effects of all that surrounds you the more difficult this task becomes. On Mars, we have to consider many factors that work against us.

By contrast, the Moon is a much more favorable environment by many metrics. A one-way journey to the Moon takes mere days, the same as it did in the Apollo era. Messages get exchanged very quickly between the Earth and the Moon, with a one-way light-travel-time of only about 1.25 seconds. An observer on the near side of the Moon the side that always faces us would be in constant contact with Earths infrastructure, whereas any other world, including Mars, would need an orbital array to enable communications when Earth is invisible from that worlds surface.

An observer on the near side of the Moon would be in constant contact with Earths infrastructure, whereas any other world, including Mars, would need an orbital array to enable communications.

The Moon offers many benefits that Mars simply doesnt have, even considering that:

In many ways, these conveniences make the Moon our top candidate for our first terraforming location. In terms of radiation, the Moon has Mars beat. Sure, the Moon and Mars both have dead cores, and surface magnetic fields that vary incoherently over the surface of those worlds. Offering negligible protection compared to Earths magnetosphere, these worlds themselves do little to shield any surface dwellers from the particles and radiation emitted by the Sun.

You might think that being closer to the Sun, the Moon would have it worse than Mars. You might realize that the Moon lies outside of the Van Allen Belts that surround Earth, meaning that our planet provides negligible protection from that effect. All of that is true.

But in 2007,a detailed analysisdemonstrated that Earths magnetic field does a remarkable job of shielding the Moon from the solar wind,significantly reducing the effects of radiationthat a surface-dweller would receive. Additionally, the Moon picks up a positive charge during the day, slowing down and reducing the harmful effects of protons and other positively charged ions. In terms of radiation safety, the Moon has Mars beat.

On the Moon, solar power is a tremendous asset, as theres no atmosphere, no cloud cover, and no absorption of radiation that occurs on the way down.

In terms of infrastructure and accessibility, its really no contest. The Moon is closer, always has a view of Earth, can exchange signals and deliverables hundreds of times more quickly than can be exchanged between Earth and Mars, and is easier to land on and take off from. Certain infrastructure could be easily shared between the Earth and the Moon, such as the internet, whereas Mars would likely, due to its remote nature, need its own standalone infrastructure.

But perhaps the biggest benefit, as anyone well-versed in real estate will tell you, is location. On the Moon, solar power is a tremendous asset, as theres no atmosphere, no cloud cover, and no absorption of radiation that occurs on the way down. You can set up a solar panel on the surface and receive the same amount of incident radiation youd receive from an orbiter, and would only need to clean dust-like particles off of the panels every few decades. (Remember, dusty solar panels are what eventually killed both NASAs Spirit and Opportunity rovers!) Meanwhile, the incident flux on Mars is just 43% of what it is on the Moon, and thats at the top of the Martian atmosphere. In terms of the bang for your buck that you get from the Sun, the Moon is more than twice as efficient.

But by far the best asset on the Moon is something you might not think of as an asset at all: the lunar regolith, or the dusty outer layer of soil found on the Moon. Mars has terrain thats varied in terms of composition, elevation, and dustiness versus compactness; many have likened it to the fresh volcanic, basaltic soils found in Hawaii. However, the material found on the Moon isnt just similar to Earth; itisthe Earth.

Part of the reason that we know the Moon and Earth formed from the same ancient event an early collision that kicked up debris, not a circumplanetary disk around the Earth is because weve brought back samples from the Moon and analyzed them in laboratories here on Earth. In terms of the elements that both worlds are made out of, the chemical compositions of the compounds we find, and the isotope ratios of the materials present, the Moon and the Earth have a common history. With the exception of the biological components found in Earths topsoil, the composition of the Moons regolith is identical to the composition of Earths crust.

If the material thats present on the Moon is not just similar, but identical to the material we have on Earth, that makes the prospect of terraforming the Moon a much easier task than we might have considered otherwise. Yes, theres no air, no atmosphere, and no easy source of liquid water on the surface. But if we bring:

Simply crushing lunar rocks to make soil will be sufficient to begin the process of lunar agriculture. Theres even a chance that we wouldnt have to bring our own water, as the permanently shadowed craters on the Moon are known to contain large amounts of frozen water: like a dirty, slushy snow-cone. In 2008, researchers went to test out the suitability of using lunar soil to grow terrestrial plantsby testing out marigolds. When bacteria were added, the resulting plants were entirely healthy.

Then, in 2019, Chinas Change-4 spacecraft, which landed on the far side of the Moon, ran an experiment involving a small, 2.6 kilogram biosphere. Inside a series of seeds, eggs, and dormant, single-celled organisms were aboard. During the lunar day, which lasts 14 Earth days, a cotton plant grew from seed: the first time ever that a seed sprouted on the Moon.Two leaves sprouted, and its suspected that the plant only died when lunar night fell: when temperatures can drop to as low as -190 C.

If we ever hope to become a multi-planet species, there will be many lessons to learn, many obstacles to encounter and overcome, and many small steps to take before were truly ready for the big prize: of becoming an interstellar civilization.

The successes of these experiments, combined with the known composition, location, and other properties of the Moon, make a strong case for it to be the first world beyond Earth that we attempt to build an extraterrestrial civilization on. If we ever hope to become a multi-planet species, there will be many lessons to learn, many obstacles to encounter and overcome, and many small steps to take before were truly ready for the big prize: of becoming an interstellar civilization. Even though the space age only began in 1957 less than a single human lifetime ago the largest obstacle to terraforming is the investment of resources. On the Moon, with no deleterious environmental factors, we have the luxury of going one dome at a time.

If our goal is to terraform the Moon, then, we now have a blueprint for how to do it:

By following these steps, we could create our first long-term home for humanity beyond the confines of planet Earth. It could be built on the Moons near side, in constant communication with Earth.

As long as we have sufficient battery power to sustain, heat, and possibly illuminate the environment during the long lunar nights, the first human extraterrestrial civilization is well within the realm of reality. Rather than attempt to terraform an entire planet, going to the Moon would give us the luxury of terraforming only the area of interest, a little bit at a time, while we learn valuable lessons that could potentially be applied worldwide. For each world thats out there, we only get one chance to do things properly. When it comes to the question of terraforming, wed be mighty fools not to go after the low-hanging fruit first.

This piece was originally published on our sister site, Big Think. Read the original article here.

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Forget Mars, lets terraform the moon - Freethink

Future Mars astronauts could make rocket fuel on the Red Planet using air, water and sunlight, a new study finds. The technology could fuel the astronauts' flights back to Earth.

Making rocket fuel on Mars instead of shipping it from Earth could not only save billions of dollars, but it could also generate tons of oxygen to help people exploring Mars breathe, scientists added.

NASA's current plans for departures from Mars involve rocket engines fueled by methane and liquid oxygen. However, neither of these fuels exists on the Red Planet, which means they would need to be transported from Earth to propel a spacecraft to Martian orbit. Ferrying the 30 or so tons of methane and liquid oxygen that NASA estimated was needed to help a human crew launch off Mars would cost about $8 billion.

Related: NASA's Perseverance rover makes oxygen on Mars for 1st time

One method NASA proposed to reduce this cost used chemical reactions to produce liquid oxygen from carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere. However, this still requires transporting methane from Earth to Mars.

Now researchers suggest a biologically inspired alternative that can produce both methane and liquid oxygen from Martian resources. Not only that, it could generate excess oxygen to help support human life.

"A biotechnology-enabled in situ utilization strategy for rocket propellant production on Mars is not too far fetched," study senior author Pamela Peralta-Yahya, a synthetic biologist at the Georgia Institute of Technology, told Space.com.

The new technique would involve shipping two microbes to Mars. The first would be cyanobacteria, which would use sunlight to create sugars via photosynthesis after given carbon dioxide from the Martian atmosphere and water taken from Martian ice. The second would be genetically modified E. coli bacteria that would ferment those sugars into a rocket propellant called 2,3-butanediol, which is currently used on Earth to help make rubber.

Although 2,3-butanediol is a weaker rocket fuel than methane, the gravity on Mars is only one-third of what is felt on Earth. "You need a lot less energy for lift-off on Mars, which gave us the flexibility to consider different chemicals that aren't designed for rocket launch on Earth," Peralta-Yahya said in a statement. "We started to consider ways to take advantage of the planet's lower gravity and lack of oxygen to create solutions that aren't relevant for Earth launches."

This strategy also needs enzymes shipped to Mars to digest the cyanobacteria and free up their sugars. Industrial separation techniques are also required to extract the 2,3-butanediol from the E. coli fermentation broth.

The researchers envision a rocket fuel plant the size of four football fields. They estimated their method would use 32% less power than the strategy that involved shipping methane from Earth and also generate 44 tons of excess oxygen to support human crews. However, it would weigh three times more.

Still, the scientists noted they could further optimize their method, such as by increasing microbial productivity, so that it would use 59% less power than the strategy that involved shipping methane from Earth and weigh 13% less, while still generating 20 tons of excess oxygen.

"Given the distinct advantages that the biological process provides, such as excess oxygen generation for colony formation, we should start thinking about how to engineer microbes for their safe use on Mars," Peralta-Yahya said.

The scientists detailed their findings online Oct. 25 in the journal Nature Communications.

Correction: A previous version of this story initially stated that 2,3-butanediol is a weaker rocket fuel than methane and liquid oxygen. It is actually only weaker than methane and has been corrected above.

Originally published on Space.com.

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Microbes could help future Mars explorers make rocket fuel and oxygen on the Red Planet - Space.com

As space travel and habitation technologies advance forward, we inch ever closer to the day humans will walk on the surface on Mars. Researchers understand that returning humans home from Mars, however, will more than likely require a Martian-based fuel supply and data suggests bacteria may be the solution.

NASA's Artemis program is slated to put mankind back on the surface of the moon by 2024. AndBlue Origin's low-orbit business parkis supposed to begin by mid-decade. With information gleaned from these current advancements, it is not hard to imagine that we will finally succeed in taking humans to Mars as well.

The reality of traveling to Mars is that it would require a large amount of rocket fuel, which equates to a much heavier and costly payload. So, shipping the required propellants and oxygen required for a return trip back to earth is simply not a viable option with current technology. It would require an estimated 30 tons of methane and liquid oxygen (LOX) to power a launch of a Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV) from the surface of Mars into low orbit. This translates into a 500 ton payload at the cost of approximately $8 billion dollars. Researchers have recognized this problem and have been hard at work devising a method to produce the necessary rocket propellant and oxygen needed on Mars itself.

A group of researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology are suggesting a biotechnology-enabled in situ resource utilization (bio-ISRU) strategy. It would leverage Martian conditions, such as low gravity, abundant Carbon Dioxide, water, and access to sunlight, to produce a Martian based rocket propellant. This method would also alleviate much of the initial launch weight and eliminate safety risks associated with transporting large stock piles of rocket propellant.

Researchers have also taken into account the much lower temperatures on Mars compared to here on Earth. Mars has an average temperature of -55 degrees Celsius, which is not ideal for microbial growth. They have suggested several different methods of achieving a temperature of around 25 degrees Celsius, which -- while not optimal -- would allow for sufficient microbial growth.

One of the proposed methods for obtaining a sufficient temperature is composed of four modules. The first being cyanobacterial cultivation in photobioreactors or biofilm growth. The second, consists of cyanobacteria biomass preprocessing composed of biomass concentration via membrane filtration and enzymatic digestion in a stirred tank. The third being a microbial fermentation of the cyanobacterial glucose to produce the 2.3-BDO. And finally the fourth module using 2.3-BDO extraction and separation via sequential liquid-liquid extraction and membrane separation to achieve 95% purity. (See below for a visual of how these modules may appear)

The proposed ideas by researchers can be found by visiting the website for Nature Communications. The proposal goes a bit deeper into the science behind the ideas brought forth.

As NASA prepares to launch its Artemis program early next year, it does so thinking it may one day help enable a manned Mars mission. Ideas such as those proposed by the researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology will help NASA moving forward as it figures out how to overcome the many barriers that currently exist in transporting humans to and from Mars.

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NASA Could Blast Bacteria To Mars And Make Rocket Fuel With It For Deep Space Travel - Hot Hardware

Kokkinopilos is the reddish land in Greece that looks like Mars. Credit: YouTube/Screenshot

Kokkinopilos, Greece, consists of a stretch of red land and sand dunes that resemble the planet Mars, making it a unique geological phenomenon in the country.

It is located in the region of Preveza, northwestern Greece, between the two small villages of Rizovouni and Agios Georgios.

Kokkinopilos is a primal stretch of hills consisting of red earth topped by lush vegetation. The color of the ground is more intense during sunrise and sunset of course, creating a magical landscape of colors.

The red dunes incline five degrees to the northwest, because of a natural fault line which is located in the area. On rainy days, water passes between the gorges and ends in the nearby valley rim, resulting in the red coloring.

These magical landscapes can only be found in Mediterranean countries because they are close to Africa, after southern winds brought African sand from the Sahara Desert and the Sahel.

According to researchers, prehistorically the land at Kokkinopilos was much flatter. The characteristic dunes found there used to contain ponds that have dried out over the millennia.

This stunning red land was explored by Eric S. Higgs in 1962 who also made important Palaeolithic and Bronze Age archaeological discoveries there.

A Roman aqueduct built during the reign of Octavius Augustus runs from the Louros River to Nicopolis through the Kokkinopilos Valley.

The town of Kokkinopilos was founded in the Middle Ages by farmers, and was captured by the Ottomans in 1442.

During the Greek War of Independence, villagers revolted against Ottoman rule, but their plan failed. The town was later looted and captured by Ottoman soldiers. The area was eventually liberated by the Greek Army in 1912.

The story of Greece and its geology begins around 250 million years ago when the continents had all come together into one single land mass that geologists call Pangea.

The area that would one day become Greece lay on the southern shore of what would eventually become Europe and on the northern edge of a great ocean called Tethys. On the southern edge of Tethys lay the continent that would one day become Africa.

The Earths crust is not all the same, nor is it a single unit. The crust making up the continents is very thick; 30 km to 40 km (18.6 to 24.85 miles) thick and it is thicker still under mountain ranges. The crust under the oceans is quite thin, however, only around 7 km (4.3 miles) thick.

In addition, the crust is not one single unit but is broken up into various sized chunks known as tectonic plates. These plates move relative to one another because they are literally floating on the deformable layer of the upper mantle beneath them, in much the same way that a ship floats on the sea.

In some places these plates are moving together and where oceanic crust is pushed into continental crust the thinner oceanic crust is forced beneath the thicker continental crust and down into the mantle, where it begins to sink and melt. Geologists call this type of plate boundary a subduction zone.

The Greek landscape and geology that we see today is here because of a subduction zone. Without it, Greece would simply not exist.

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The Red Land of Greece Reminiscent of Planet Mars - Greek Reporter