Category Archives: Mars

"This Week In Space" brings you whats new and exciting in space exploration and astronomy once a week, every week. From supernovae to SpaceX or Mars missions to black holes, if its out of this world, its covered here:

China put the first piece of its planned space station into orbit, but marred the accomplishment by letting a rocket stage tumble back down to Earth in a totally uncontrolledand dangerousfashion. For several days, everyone from backyard astronomers to the US Space Force watched to see where the 23-ton, 17,000 mph projectile would crash and potentially wreak destruction. NASA and other space agencies condemned Chinas negligence, to which the Peoples Republic responded that it was being held to a double standard: when debris from the booster stage of a Falcon 9 rocket rained down over the Pacific Northwest last March, SpaceX drew much much less bad press. The key difference? SpaceX intended to deorbit its booster safely but was held back by a technical failure. China always planned to simply drop its rocket on the Earth like litter. Luckily for them, the booster broke apart over the Indian Ocean last Sunday, and no damage was done.

New map may show humanity's future in space

Travel space from your computer thanks to new mapping aided by data from the Gaia spacecraft.

In a monumental feat of cartography, a group of European astronomers have created a detailed and accurate 3D map of nearby space that you can fly through. Every known star and planet within 30 lightyears is included. These are the closest stellar systems to Earth, so there's a good chance that the first life we may ever discover on another planet outside the solar system would be around one of them. And if humanity were ever to leave the Sun for other systems, these stars would be the first destinations.

The map is a synthesis of decades of scientific results. It is polished with new data from the Gaia spacecraft, an ESA mission that aims to measure the precise locations of around 1 billion stars.

Rover captures sounds of Mars, space helicopter in flight

In a two-minute recording of audio and video from the Martian surface, the Perseverance rover watched Ingenuity, the first space helicopter, take flight and return from a nearly 900-foot round trip. Although this is Ingenuitys fourth flight, it is the first time a spacecraft has ever recorded the sound of another. Listen: underneath the steady, surreal throb of the rushing Martian wind, you can make out whirring from Ingenuitys blades as it passes close to the rover.

The goal of Ingenuity was always simply to find out what it's like to fly on Mars. Now that it has conducted test flights so successfully time and again, NASA has announced that the helicopter will soon transition to actually helping Perseverance by undertaking scouting missions.

NASA agrees to first private astronaut mission (without Tom Cruise, for now)

404095 05: Actor Tom Cruise (C), with film producer Toni Myers (3rd L) and astronauts from the International Stace Station mission Nancy Currie (L), Susan Helms (2nd L), Jim Voss (2nd R), and Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Usachev (R) flash a thumbs up as they attend the premiere of the movie "Space Station 3-D."

In a historic moment for the privatization of space, a corporation has officially bought four tickets to the International Space Station. In 2022 (at the earliest), Axiom Space will send three investors and an ex-NASA astronaut to dock a SpaceX Dragon capsule on the ISS and stay there for eight days. Although it is not exactly clear what the visitors will be up to, activities appear to include outreach for hospitals and research for the Candiian and Israeli space agencies.

The tickets are said to cost $55 million apiece. Axiom will foot the bill for their crews supplies and storage space on the station, while NASA has agreed to pay Axiom to bring low-temperature samples back to the Earth.

While it was initially thought that Tom Cruise and director Doug Liman (of "The Bourne Identity" fame) would join the mission as part of a movie they are making, this plan seems to be postponed for now. Axiom is aiming for their ISS visit to be the first of many, though. Mr. Cruise should have plenty of opportunities to become an astronaut.

Asa Stahl is an astrophysics PhD candidate at Rice University and the award-winning author of the pop science childrens book "The Big Bang Book." His research is aimed at discovering planets around other stars in order to answer some of our biggest questions, like "How special is the Earth?" and "How did we get here?" His recent book has been recognized as an Edward Jack Keats Award Honoree, an NSTA-CBC Outstanding Science Book, and a Sakura Medal Finalist.

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This week in space: Sounds of Mars, private astronauts in space - Chron

BEIJING -- China landed a spacecraft on Mars for the first time on Saturday, a technically challenging feat more difficult than a moon landing, in the latest step forward for its ambitious goals in space.

Plans call for a rover to stay in the lander for a few days of diagnostic tests before rolling down a ramp to explore an area of Mars known as Utopia Planitia. It will join an American rover that arrived at the red planet in February.

Chinas first Mars landing follows its launch last month of the main section of what will be a permanent space station and a mission that brought back rocks from the moon late last year.

China has left a footprint on Mars for the first time, an important step for our countrys space exploration, the official Xinhua News Agency said in announcing the landing on one of its social media accounts.

The U.S. has had nine successful landings on Mars since 1976. The Soviet Union landed on the planet in 1971, but the mission failed after the craft stopped transmitting information soon after touchdown.

A rover and a tiny helicopter from the American landing in February are currently exploring Mars. NASA expects the rover to collect its first sample in July for return to Earth in a decade.

China has landed on the moon before but landing on Mars is a much more difficult undertaking. Spacecraft use shields for protection from the searing heat of entering the Martian atmosphere, and use both retro-rockets and parachutes to slow down enough to prevent a crash landing. The parachutes and rockets must be deployed at precise times to land at the designated spot. Only mini-retro rockets are required for a moon landing, and parachutes alone are sufficient for returning to Earth.

Xinhua said the entry capsule entered the Mars atmosphere at an altitude of 125 kilometers (80 miles), initiating what it called the riskiest phase of the whole mission."

A 200 square meter (2,150 square foot) parachute was deployed and later jettisoned, and then a retro-rocket was fired to slow the speed of the craft to almost zero, Xinhua said. The craft hovered about 100 meters (330 feet) above the surface to identify obstacles before touching down on four buffer legs.

Each step had only one chance, and the actions were closely linked. If there had been any flaw, the landing would have failed, said Geng Yan, an official at the China National Space Administration, according to Xinhua.

Touchdown was at 7:18 a.m. Beijing time (23:18 Friday GMT; 7:18 p.m. EDT), although more than an hour passed before ground controllers could confirm the landing was a success, Xinhua said. The rover had to open its solar panels and antenna, and then it took more than 17 minutes for its signals to traverse the distance between Mars and Earth.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, in a congratulatory letter to the mission team, called the landing an important step in our countrys interplanetary exploration journey, realizing the leap from Earth-moon to the planetary system and leaving the mark of the Chinese on Mars for the first time. ... The motherland and people will always remember your outstanding feats!"

NASA Associate Administrator Thomas Zurbuchen tweeted his congratulations, saying, Together with the global science community, I look forward to the important contributions this mission will make to humanitys understanding of the Red Planet.

China's Mars landing was the top trending topic on Weibo, a leading social media platform, as people expressed both excitement and pride.

The Tianwen-1 spacecraft has been orbiting Mars since February, when it arrived after a 6 1/2-month journey from Earth. Xinhua described the mission as China's first planetary exploration.

The rover, named after the Chinese god of fire Zhurong, is expected to be deployed for 90 days to search for evidence of life. About the size of a small car, it has ground-penetrating radar, a laser, and sensors to gauge the atmosphere and magnetic sphere.

China's space program has proceeded in a more cautious manner than the U.S. and the Soviet Union during the height of their space race.

The launch of the main module for China's space station in April is the first of 11 planned missions to build and provision the station and send up a three-person crew by the end of next year. While the module was successfully launched, the uncontrolled return to Earth of the rocket drew international criticism including from NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.

China has said it wants to land people on the moon and possibly build a scientific base there. No timeline has been released for these projects. A space plane is also reportedly under development.

Associated Press researcher Henry Hou, news assistant Caroline Chen and video journalist Sam McNeil contributed to this report.

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China lands on Mars in major advance for its space ambitions - ABC News

This image of NASA's Mars Perseverance rover shows a plate fastened to the rover aft crossbeam (lower right) with three fingernail-sized chips stenciled with nearly 11 million names of Earthlings. The full-resolution image was taken by the Perseverance rover's left Navigation Camera (Navcam) on Feb. 28, 2021.

The names were submitted as part of the Send Your Name to Mars campaign. Anyone who missed this opportunity can sign up to send their name on the next Mars mission.

The chips also include winning student contest essays that led to the selection of Perseverance as the rover's name and Ingenuity as the name for the experimental helicopter it carried to Mars. The plate has a laser-etched graphic depicting Mars and Earth connected by the Sun's rays illuminating both, and a hidden Morse code message says "Explore as One." The illustration honors plaques on the Pioneer spacecraft, and the Golden Records carried into space by Voyager 1 and 2.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory built and manages operations of Perseverance and Ingenuity for the agency. Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages JPL for NASA. A key objective for Perseverance's mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet's geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust).

Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.

The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA's Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.

JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.

For more about Perseverance: mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/ and nasa.gov/perseverance

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Closeup of Send Your Name to Mars Chips on Perseverance Rover - Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Plans are firming up to bring a sample of Mars back to Earth in 2031.

A joint webinar last month by NASA and Lockheed Martin, which has participated in NASA sample return missions before, l went over the Mars sample return mission and how NASA's Perseverance rover will support that effort. The hope is that, by bringing some of the Red Planet back to Earth, we can gain more insight into Mars' potential for life by using high-resolution lab instruments to examine Martian rocks.

The discussion took place just days after the Biden administration announced its intention to allocate discretionary funds to the sample mission, which would involve a series of U.S. and European spacecraft carefully ferrying pieces of Mars back to Earth.

Related: NASA's Perseverance rover kicks off audacious Mars sample-return project

The first small step of that effort will happen relatively soon on Mars. Perseverance will dump its first cache of materials at the end of its primary mission in 2023, webinar participants said, and mission planners have already mapped out a potential route that will make the most of the watery environment that filled Jezero Crater with potentially life-friendly materials billions of years ago.

"Lakes and rivers and deltas on Earth are great places to preserve ancient life, and so we think this is a great place if ancient life ever existed on Mars to be able to find it," Jennifer Trosper, Mars 2020 deputy project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, said of Perseverance's location.

Trosper showed a map filled with colorful lines, plotting potential "traverse routes" for the rover as it moves from its landing area, dodging some sand dunes en route before arriving at a suspected delta. At the delta, it will take samples of the lake bed and then move on to a nearby crater wall, Trosper said.

Then, it will be time for Perseverance to deposit its cache of samples somewhere. "We have 43 sample tubes onboard the rover, and we plan to do an initial cache at the end of our prime mission of hopefully 15 or 20 samples," she said. "It'll probably be near the crater rim or even on the delta, and then we'll continue on."

In 2026, if all goes according to plan, a sample retrieval lander will alight near the cache, using terrain-relative navigation. A fetch rover will pick up the samples and put them inside an orbiting sample container, which will then be placed aboard a Mars ascent vehicle to bring the precious package up to Martian orbit, Trosper noted.

The relay race will continue with the Mars ascent vehicle handing off the samples to an Earth-return orbiter, which will then make the several-month trip back to our planet for arrival in 2031. After entering Earth's atmosphere, the samples carefully quarantined to avoid any contamination of our planet or the package will eventually make their way to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Texas, Trosper said. (Johnson Space Center already contains numerous Apollo moon samples and is well equipped for protecting space stuff.)

While the Mars sample return mission is the first effort to retrieve a sample from a potentially life-friendly area, other missions have returned samples from other bodies in the solar system. Humans and robots picked up rocks from the moon in the 1960s and 1970s and sent those back to Earth, allowing scientists to hypothesize that the moon was formed from a collision between Earth and a Mars-like object billions of years ago. More recent studies of Apollo samples in the 2010s, using more advanced equipment, revealed traces of water inside samples that were previously thought to be dry.

Spacecraft have also sampled numerous comets and asteroids, and two sample-return missions are happening right now. Scientists are examining samples from Japan's Hayabusa2 mission, which landed at asteroid Ryugu in December. They're also eagerly awaiting the return of NASA's Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) capsule that will bear bits of asteroid Bennu in 2023.

But the Mars sample return will be even more ambitious, said David Mitchell, director of the Engineering and Technology Directorate at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. "The significance in this program versus past sample-return missions is it requires several different missions to occur over various points in time," he said.

Past missions such as Stardust, which returned a sample from a comet in 2006, show the potential for Mars samples to be examined in high definition, said University of Washington astronomer Don Brownlee, principal investigator of the comet sample return mission. As with the Apollo samples before it, scientists keep revisiting the results of the Stardust mission as equipment improves, he said. One later find in 2014, for example, revealed interstellar particles in the sample.

Brownlee said Stardust "revolutionized" scientists' understanding of comets because the mission showed a strange combination of "ice and fire" forming these icy bodies. The rocky materials in the sample were made in the inner solar system at temperatures of perhaps 1,000 to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit (540 to 1,100 degrees Celsius). Yet the icy materials were made in temperatures as low as "10s of degrees" above absolute zero, the coldest temperature that can exist, he said.

"We believe that most of the rocky materials in comets formed close to the sun," Brownlee said, noting that over time, the materials were ejected to the Kuiper Belt, the region just outside the orbit of Neptune and including Pluto's orbit where most solar system comets come from. Even more notable, most of the rocky material includes biosignatures or biological processes that are indicative of life, he said.

These findings wouldn't have been possible in space because of the power and mass requirements of the instruments, Brownlee said. "I mean, the biggest instruments used to analyze the return samples were synchrotrons, which can be as big as a shopping center," he said.

While Mars sample return is high on NASA's wish list, the agency does plan to send astronauts to the moon to collect samples. again This time, it will be as part of the Artemis program, which may set humans on the moon as soon as 2024, depending on whether the Biden administration carries through the deadline set by the previous administration.

When Artemis goes forward, a "close second" to Mars on NASA Chief Scientist Jim Green's wish list would be to see humans or helpful robots picking up a core sample from permanently shadowed craters on the moon, where volatiles such as water ice collected over 4.5 billion years from the start of the solar system.

"This will be an incredibly exciting set of material that will, I think, tell us a lot about the origin and evolution of the Earth-moon system," Green said during the webinar.

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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NASA really wants a Mars sample return mission. Here's what's in store. - Space.com

With a recovering economy, a strongman attitude, and a plan to dominate, China is eyeing a new frontier space. The country that recently became the centre of global condemnation over the handling of the deadly coronavirus, on Friday joined an elite club of nations to land a rover on another planet.

China's first Mars exploration mission, the Tianwen-1 probe, touched down in the Utopia Planitia basin, putting the country officially in the race to Mars which has so far been dominated by Nasa and the United States.

President Xi Jinping had last month made it clear that Beijing is now part of the interplanetary race to explore new regions of the cosmos. According to Global Times, Xi in his congratulatory letter following the maiden landing of the Chinese rover said that "this success marks a major step forward in the country's interplanetary exploration, achieving a leap from Earth-Moon system to the interplanetary one. Leaving the footprint of Chinese people on Mars for the first time marks another milestone of the country's space industry development."

Over the years, China has made it clear that after showing its willingness to risk it all on the land, air and sea, the dragon is ready to take the next leap to go beyond Earth's orbit.

China's space mission has emerged as one of the most ambitious plans under President Xi Jinping, who is pushing the envelope on this frontier. (Photo: Getty)

When countries raced to the Moon, China decided to explore a section that has been left ignored for decades- the far side (the side not visible to Earth). The Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA) in January 2019 successfully landed its probe Chang'e-4, named after the goddess of the Moon, on the side that always faces away from Earth. The second successful landing came on the shoulders of Chang'e-3 probe that had reached the lunar surface on December 14, 2013.

While the country also landed its third probe Chang'e-5 in December 2020 on the near side of the Moon, the probe on the far side is still transmitting exceeding its three months operational period on Earth's natural satellite. The Chang'e-5, which landed on Mons Rumker area of the huge volcanic plain Oceanus Procellarum, known as the "Ocean of Storms" created a new record by returning a sample from the lunar surface for the first time since 1976. The last lunar sample was collected by Soviet Union's Luna mission.

India had tried to unsuccessfully land a rover on the far side of the moon. With the failure of Chandrayaan-2 behind, Isro is now eyeing Chandrayaan-3 to take the journey forward.

Infographic: Rahul Gupta/India Today

The International Space Station, a home away from home, flying nearly 200 miles above Earth has been a symbol of space exploration for decades. Developed jointly by the US, Russia and other countries, the module has been home for research and experiments to make humans an interplanetary species. However, the station is set to complete its operational life in 2024 and Russia has already announced a withdrawal by 2025. While the US' plans are unclear, China is all set to give an alternative to the ageing ISS as it sends modules one after another to build its own station beyond Earth.

The country was recently in the news when one of its Long March-5, a homegrown rocket, began tumbling uncontrollably after delivering part of the space station module, putting lives and properties on Earth at risk. The rocket booster landed unceremoniously in the Indian Ocean near the Maldives not before it evoked massive criticism from across the world.

The country was recently in the news when one of its Long March-5, a homegrown rocket, began tumbling uncontrollably after delivering part of the space station module. (Photo: Getty)

Named Tiangong which translates to a Heavenly Palace, the Chinese Space Station will be able to house at least three astronauts for a long duration stay and six for a shorter time period once ready. According to Global Times, "The Tianhe module, the largest, heaviest and most complicated spacecraft that China has developed to date, will provide astronauts with a living and working space of approximately 50 cubic meters. This space will increase to some 110 cubic meters once the other two experiment modules are in place." The space station is likely to be operational by 2022 with 11 scheduled launches set to carry critical life-sustaining modules to the flying construction site.

Xi Jinping had recently said, "I hope you will vigorously carry forward both the spirit of 'Two Bombs and One Satellite' and the spirit of manned spaceflight, be self-dependent and innovative to achieve victory in space station construction, and contribute to building a modern socialist country!"

Infographic: Rahul Gupta/India Today

295 days after it was launched aboard the Long March 5 heavy rocket from China, Zhurong, a 1.85-meter-tall and nearly 240-kilogram lander-rover combination touched down on Martian surface, firming Chinese presence in not so closely contested interplanetary exploration. The rover cemented Beijing's place in an elite list of the nation to go beyond Earth and reach the surface of an unknown world to look for an age-old critical answer Are we alone?

Six scientific payloads a pair of navigation and terrain cameras, a multispectral camera, a Mars surface composition detector, a penetrating radar, a mast-mounted magnetometer and a Mars climate station are onboard the rover that will study the characteristics of the Martian soil for a three-month period of 90 Sols. China had vowed to achieve orbiting landing and roving on the Martian surface in the first attempt. While it has orbited and landed on the surface now, Chinese engineers will roll out the rover in the coming weeks.

With China now on Mars, Beijing has plans to send another mission to the Red Planet by 2028 to return Martian samples to Earth. A similar mission is in the offing by the US and the European Space Agency. Beijing is also planning to push beyond Mars with missions being planned to intercept comets and asteroids to further the study of outer space and what lies in the far and wide reaches of the solar system.

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'Two Bombs and One Satellite': China eyes space race from Moon to Mars and beyond - India Today

SOUTHFIELD, Mich., May 17, 2021 /PRNewswire/ --The Mars Agency, a global commerce marketing agency, announced today a substantial equity investment by Denver-based middle market private equity firm, Mountaingate Capital ("Mountaingate").

Founded in 1972, The Mars Agency has experienced tremendous growth since inception and has earned a stellar reputation as a leader in shopper conversion, retail intelligence, technology solutions and as a top place to work. The Mars Agency serves an impressive client roster of globally recognized and industry-leading brands. With a growing team of more than 500 employees spread across three continents, The Mars Agency is partnering with Mountaingate to accelerate growth organically as well as through selective strategic acquisitions to better serve its clients.

The Mars Agency will continue to operate as an independent agency with the same level of agility and client centricity, and this new equity funding will allow The Mars Agency to build out capabilities, strengthen its offering and further the development of the company's proprietary commerce technology platform, Marilyn.

The entire Mars Agency leadership team will remain intact across the domestic and international offices. Both Ken Barnett and Rob Rivenburgh, together with members of the senior leadership team, will continue as equity owners in the partnership. Ken Barnett will remain Executive Chairman and Rob Rivenburgh will be elevated to Global CEO. Additionally, Darren Keen remains as CEO, International Markets, responsible for the agency's continued operational expansion outside of North America.

"We have an industry-leading track record of passionately innovating and bringing cutting edge solutions forward to our clients and to the market. This gives us the financial backing to continue to do that even faster through innovation and acquisition," said Mr. Barnett. "Fueling our growth allows us to lead, retain and attract the best talent, innovate, and offer the most powerful solutions and ideas to our valued clients globally."

The Mars Agency leadership team carefully and thoughtfully chose this equity partner because Mountaingate is aligned with the company's core values and has tremendous experience accelerating technology enabled solutions. Mountaingate has invested extensively in the data and technology driven marketing services industry and has a proven process and team to complement The Mars Agency leadership group. Furthermore, this investment allows The Mars Agency to operate independently, maintaining its agility,"intrapreneurialism" and growth-minded culture to continue to optimally serve and partner with its clients a stringent component in The Mars Agency selection criteria.

"Mountaingate's extensive experience helping businesses of our size to scale within the commerce marketing industry and alignment with The Mars Agency's purpose of driving growth for our clients, our people and our community made Mountaingate the perfect partner for us," said Mr. Rivenburgh. "We are thrilled to have their support and are very excited about this next chapter of growth."

The Mars Agencyis an award-winning, independently owned global commerce marketing practice with a growth-for-clients focus. With talent spanning the Americas, Europe and Asia, they create breakthrough, connected commerce solutions by balancing the smartest humanity with the latest technology. Their latest MarTech platform, Marilyn is the first and only end-to-end commerce advisor. Learn more atwww.themarsagency.comand meetmarilyn.ai.

Mountaingate Capital is a leading buy-and-build focused middle market private equity firm based in Denver, CO, and was named one of the Top 50 best Private Equity Firms for Founder-Owned Businesses by Inc Magazine in 2019 and 2020. Learn more at http://www.mountaingate.com.

For more information, contact:Sarah Jo Sautter[emailprotected]248.506.5829

SOURCE The Mars Agency

https://www.themarsagency.com

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The Mars Agency Partners With Mountaingate Capital To Accelerate Their Ability To Respond To Their Clients Growing Needs - PRNewswire

Working with Accenture as a partner to Microsoft, the companies are further expanding a unified cloud and data foundation across all Mars businesses on Microsoft Azure, helping Mars achieve its "cloud-first" strategy and significantly fast-tracking its cloud journey as well as the realization of business growth. This digital infrastructure is providing Mars with the business insights needed to accelerate growth, profitability, speed, resiliency, sustainability and, most importantly, build and develop trust with customers and consumers by offering more responsible, transparent and compelling experiences. For example, as one of the world's largest petcare companies, Mars is driven to make a better world for pets. The company has leveraged the Azure platform to create AI-powered applications and services to support its business.

"Our relationship with Microsoft is helping transform how data and technology are used to continue ensuring compliant customer solutions and build trusted brand and consumer experiences. It will change the relationship between our brands and consumers, deliver hyper-relevant consumer experiences that include content and media, and fulfill needs and expectations across every touchpoint in the consumer's journey," said Sandeep Dadlani, chief digital officer, Mars. "After evaluating all the platforms on the market, we chose Microsoft as our primary Mars platform because of its rich portfolio of features, engineering partner ecosystem, talent availability, focus on data privacy, and security and similar cultural values and principles."

Microsoft Azure's AI and IoT solutions provide Mars with the tools and capabilities to digitize its supply chain at scale including manufacturing while enhancing the collective digital skills of Mars Associates globally. Mars has already made progress to enable this digitization, working with digital manufacturing and operations experts from Accenture's Industry X group to deploy the Azure Digital Twins IoT platform in its manufacturing facilities. Using Digital Twins to optimize production will help Mars improve margins and reduce waste, and empower on-site associates to make real-time decisions. Based on this use case, Mars will be able to quickly scale to use similar IoT technologies for optimizing manufacturing across its business segments, including food and petcare, providing process control, consistency and uniformity across product lines and helping to give the company a competitive advantage by increasing speed and capacity, and reducing operational costs. In the future, Mars plans to use digital technologies to introduce even more intelligence into the end-to-end supply-chain processes, including identifying the optimal way to create products through digital simulations that take into account climate and other situational considerations, as well as creating greater transparency and visibility into its supply chain from the point of origin all the way to the consumer.

"Through our expanded relationship, we're harnessing the expertise and insights Mars has gained from more than a century of producing some of the world's most loved brands to create a layer of intelligence that will drive reimagined experiences for Associates and consumers," said Judson Althoff, executive vice president of Microsoft's Worldwide Commercial Business. "Together, we will create a foundation for cloud, data and AI that will allow Mars to grow faster and transform how work gets done."

Mars, Accenture and Microsoft share similar ambitions around sustainability, which was a key decision-making factor for Mars choosing Azure. As Mars continues to migrate key infrastructure and workloads to Azure, Microsoft's commitment to 100% renewable energy in its datacenters by 2025 will help Mars reach its own goal to reduce its total greenhouse gas emissions across its value chain by 67% by 2050. The relationship is also helping Mars make progress toward its other sustainability goals around environmental impact by implementing technology solutions for reducing the waste of energy, raw materials and water across its production facilities around the world.

The new future of work

Mars has always been considered a forward-looking and modern workplace, ranked fifth in the 2020 Fortune's Global Best Places to Work List. Mars plans to continue incorporating digital technologies to evolve and transform its workplaces, focusing on increasing Associates' digital skills. To accomplish this, Mars, Accenture and Microsoft will work together to establish an Innovation Lab to collaborate on the use of advanced technologies, to expedite time to market for new transformative use cases, direct-to-consumer initiatives, sustainability efforts and digitized product innovation. Through the Innovation Lab, Mars will focus on the future of work and how technology from Microsoft can help drive greater efficiency and effectiveness in the modern Mars work environment.

Additionally,Mars is empowering its workforce with modern workplace tools,such as Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Viva, to drive tighter integration between its businesses and increase productivity and collaboration for its Associates.

About Mars, Incorporated

For more than a century, Mars, Incorporated has been driven by the belief that the world we want tomorrow starts with how we do business today. This idea is at the center of who we have always been as a global, family-owned business. Today, Mars is transforming, innovating and evolving in ways that affirm our commitment to making a positive impact on the world around us.

Across our diverse and expanding portfolio of confectionery, food, and Petcare products and services, we employ 133,000 dedicated Associates who are all moving in the same direction: forward. With $40 billion in annual sales, we produce some of the world's best-loved brands including DOVE, EXTRA, M&M's, MILKY WAY, SNICKERS, TWIX, ORBIT, PEDIGREE, ROYAL CANIN, SKITTLES, BEN'S ORIGINAL, WHISKAS, COCOAVIA, and 5; and take care of half of the world's pets through our nutrition, health and services businesses, including AniCura, Banfield Pet Hospitals, BluePearl, Linnaeus, and VCA.

We know we can only be truly successful if our suppliers and the communities in which we operate prosper as well. The Mars Five Principles Quality, Responsibility, Mutuality, Efficiency and Freedom inspire our Associates to take action every day to help create a world tomorrow in which the planet, its people and pets can thrive.

For more information about Mars, please visitwww.mars.com. Join us onFacebook,Twitter,LinkedIn,InstagramandYouTube.

About Microsoft

Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT" @microsoft) enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

SOURCE Microsoft Corporation

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Mars and Microsoft work together to accelerate Mars' digital transformation and reimagine business operations, Associate experience and consumer...

SOUTHFIELD, Mich., May 17, 2021 /PRNewswire/ --The Mars Agency, a global commerce marketing agency, announced today a substantial equity investment by Denver-based middle market private equity firm, Mountaingate Capital ("Mountaingate").

Founded in 1972, The Mars Agency has experienced tremendous growth since inception and has earned a stellar reputation as a leader in shopper conversion, retail intelligence, technology solutions and as a top place to work. The Mars Agency serves an impressive client roster of globally recognized and industry-leading brands. With a growing team of more than 500 employees spread across three continents, The Mars Agency is partnering with Mountaingate to accelerate growth organically as well as through selective strategic acquisitions to better serve its clients.

The Mars Agency will continue to operate as an independent agency with the same level of agility and client centricity, and this new equity funding will allow The Mars Agency to build out capabilities, strengthen its offering and further the development of the company's proprietary commerce technology platform, Marilyn.

The entire Mars Agency leadership team will remain intact across the domestic and international offices. Both Ken Barnett and Rob Rivenburgh, together with members of the senior leadership team, will continue as equity owners in the partnership. Ken Barnett will remain Executive Chairman and Rob Rivenburgh will be elevated to Global CEO. Additionally, Darren Keen remains as CEO, International Markets, responsible for the agency's continued operational expansion outside of North America.

"We have an industry-leading track record of passionately innovating and bringing cutting edge solutions forward to our clients and to the market. This gives us the financial backing to continue to do that even faster through innovation and acquisition," said Mr. Barnett. "Fueling our growth allows us to lead, retain and attract the best talent, innovate, and offer the most powerful solutions and ideas to our valued clients globally."

The Mars Agency leadership team carefully and thoughtfully chose this equity partner because Mountaingate is aligned with the company's core values and has tremendous experience accelerating technology enabled solutions. Mountaingate has invested extensively in the data and technology driven marketing services industry and has a proven process and team to complement The Mars Agency leadership group. Furthermore, this investment allows The Mars Agency to operate independently, maintaining its agility,"intrapreneurialism" and growth-minded culture to continue to optimally serve and partner with its clients a stringent component in The Mars Agency selection criteria.

"Mountaingate's extensive experience helping businesses of our size to scale within the commerce marketing industry and alignment with The Mars Agency's purpose of driving growth for our clients, our people and our community made Mountaingate the perfect partner for us," said Mr. Rivenburgh. "We are thrilled to have their support and are very excited about this next chapter of growth."

The Mars Agencyis an award-winning, independently owned global commerce marketing practice with a growth-for-clients focus. With talent spanning the Americas, Europe and Asia, they create breakthrough, connected commerce solutions by balancing the smartest humanity with the latest technology. Their latest MarTech platform, Marilyn is the first and only end-to-end commerce advisor. Learn more atwww.themarsagency.comand meetmarilyn.ai.

Mountaingate Capital is a leading buy-and-build focused middle market private equity firm based in Denver, CO, and was named one of the Top 50 best Private Equity Firms for Founder-Owned Businesses by Inc Magazine in 2019 and 2020. Learn more at http://www.mountaingate.com.

For more information, contact:

Sarah Jo Sautter

sautters@themarsagency.com

248.506.5829

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SOURCE The Mars Agency

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The Mars Agency Partners With Mountiangate Capital To Accelerate Their Ability To Respond To Their Clients Growing Needs - Iosco County News Herald

A butte within the Stimson formation as seen by the Curiosity rover. These rock formations contain preserved remnants of ancient dune fields. Image via NASA/ Imperial College London.

Scientists who study the possibility of life on Mars want to know how habitable the planet might have been millions or billions of years ago. Was Mars ever able to support life as we know it, at least microbial? The evidence from landers, rovers and orbiters over the past few decades has continued to indicate that Mars was indeed once more habitable than it is now. But then conditions changed; the water on the surface dried up and the atmosphere became thinner and drier. Late last month, an international team of researchers reported on a new study documenting the changing habitability of Mars. These scientists examined ancient sand dune fields preserved in rocks in Gale Crater, where the Curiosity rover has been exploring an ancient lakebed since 2012.

The new peer-reviewed research was published in AGUsJGR: Planets on March 31, 2021.

Curiosity had already confirmed that Gale Crater used to be a lake or series of lakes a few billion years ago. Now, it has also found evidence for an ancient dune field called the Stimson formation that is still preserved as a layer of rocks that lies on top of the older lake bottom rock layers.

This is the region the Curiosity rover has been exploring over the past several years, near the base of Mount Sharp in Gale Crater. The Stimson formation outcrops are marked with a square. Image via NASA/ JPL/ University of Arizona/ Imperial College of London.

This change in rock layers provides clues as to how the climate changed and how the environment shifted from a habitable one to the uninhabitable arid desert we see today.

It also helps scientists better understand various surface and atmospheric processes that were active at the time, such as the direction of the blowing sand that formed the dunes. The researchers were even able to figure out the shape, size and migration direction of the largest dunes.

One discovery is that there were once dunes nestled right up against the central mountain in Gale Crater, called Mount Sharp. They had formed on a wind-eroded surface at a 5 degree angle. Those dunes were what are known as compound dunes; each large dune had its own set of smaller satellite dunes that migrated in different directions from the main dunes. From the paper:

Analysis of the sedimentary structures generated by the complex interaction of these two scales of dune indicates that the large dunes migrated north, and that the smaller superimposed dunes migrated across the faces of the large dunes toward the northeast.

Dunes are of course common Earth, and they are on Mars as well. Mars has vast dune fields today, not just the ancient preserved ones from billions of years ago. Steve Banham, lead author of the new study, discussed how such dunes form and how they can be preserved:

As the wind blows, it transports sand grains of a certain size, and organizes them into piles of sand we recognize as sand dunes. These landforms are common on Earth in sandy deserts, such as the Sahara, the Namibian dune field, and the Arabian deserts. The strength of the wind and its uniformity of direction control the shape and size of the dune, and evidence of this can be preserved in the rock record.

If there is an excess of sediment transported into a region, dunes can climb as they migrate and partially bury adjacent dunes. These buried layers contain a feature called cross-bedding, which can give an indication of the size of the dunes and the direction which they were migrating. By investigating these cross beds, we were able to determine these strata were deposited by specific dunes that form when competing winds transport sediment in two different directions.

Its amazing that from looking at Martian rocks we can determine that two competing winds drove these large dunes across the plains of Gale Crater three and a half billion years ago. This is some of the first evidence we have of variable wind directions, be they seasonal or otherwise.

Butte M1b, part of the Murray buttes within the Stimson formation, showing undulating rock layers, thought to be the remains of ancient sand dunes. Image via Banham et al./ JGR: Planets.

The dune fields are thought to have formed after the lake in Gale Crater dried out. The bottom of the crater, and lower flanks of the mountain, are composed of ancient lakebed sediments. Higher up on Mount Sharp are non-sedimentary sandstone rock layers. Most of Curiositys mission so far has been spent examining the sedimentary layers, containing mudstones and clays, for evidence of past habitability. Banham added:

More than 3.5 billion years ago this lake dried out, and the lake bottom sediments were exhumed and eroded to form the mountain at the center of the crater, the present-day Mount Sharp. The flanks of the mountain are where we have found evidence that an ancient dune field formed after the lake, indicating an extremely arid climate.

While analysis of the preserved dune fields helps to answer questions about the changing habitability of Mars, it also appears to indicate that the habitability potential lessened when the dunes were formed, after the lake dried up. When the dunes formed, there was less water available for any microbes, and the landscape was starting to change to the dry desert we see today. The dunes would also not be ideal for preserving traces of any past life, either.From the paper:

The presence of large, wind-driven dunes indicates that the region was extremely arid, and that at the time the Stimson dune field existed the interior of Gale Crater was devoid of surface water, unlike the setting recorded by the older, underlying lake sediments of the Murray formation.

Steven Banham at Imperial College London is the lead author of the new study about ancient Martian sand dunes. Image via Imperial College London.

Banham said:

The vast expanse of the dune field wouldnt have been a particularly hospitable place for microbes to live, and the record left behind would rarely preserve evidence of life, if there was any.

This desert sand represents a snapshot of time within Gale Crater, and we know that the dune field was preceded by lakes, yet we dont know what overlies the desert sandstones further up Mount Sharp. It could be more layers deposited in arid conditions, or it could be deposits associated with more humid climates. We will have to wait and see.

Banham added:

Although geologists have been reading rocks on Earth for 200 years, its only in the last decade or so that weve been able to read Martian rocks with the same level of detail as we do on Earth.

Curiosity is now continuing to drive further up the flanks of Mount Sharp, and will study rock layers higher up to document any changes in ancient wind patterns, Banham said:

Were interested to see how the dunes reflect the wider climate of Mars, its changing seasons, and longer-term changes in wind direction. Ultimately, this all relates to the major driving question: to discover whether life ever arose on Mars.

Dune fields are still common on Mars, such as this one seen by the Viking 1 lander on August 3, 1976. Image via NASA/ JPL-Caltech.

Closeup view of a sand dune called Namib Dune, part of the Bagnold Dunes near Mount Sharp in Gale Crater, as seen by the Curiosity rover on December 18, 2015. Namib is about 16 feet (5 meters) tall. Image via NASA/ JPL-Caltech/ MSSS.

Mars atmosphere is substantially thinner today then it was back then, but the planet still has active dune fields. All of the rovers and landers have seen dunes, as well as smaller ripples, up close. Orbiters have photographed them all over the planet, including at the poles. The dunes come in a variety of shapes and sizes, and often closely resemble dunes and dune fields on Earth. Just as it is often described to be, Mars truly is a desert world.

Bottom line: The changing habitability of Mars has been preserved in ancient dune fields in Gale Crater according to a new study from researchers at Imperial College London.

Source: A Rock Record of Complex Aeolian Bedforms in a Hesperian Desert Landscape: The Stimson Formation as Exposed in the Murray Buttes, Gale Crater, Mars

Via Imperial College London

Read this article:

History of Mars habitability preserved in ancient dunes - EarthSky

It will be cheaper to build on Mars than buy in New Zealand by 2040 if recent house price increases continue, according to a piece of tongue-in-cheek research conducted by a data consultancy owned by Stats NZ.

Data Ventures executive director Drew Broadly said the team conducted the analysis, in part, to stop arguments between home-owners and renters in the office about the sustainability of the market.

The research was part of a monthly training exercise in out-of-the-box thinking done by Data Ventures to develop staffs ability to find new ways of attacking complex problems.

Its becoming so bad moving to Mars should be something you should seriously consider, Broadly said.

Aispacefactory.com/Supplied

An artist's impression of what future habitations on Mars might look like.

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Comparing house price trajectory to the predicted cost of building on Mars also allowed a light-hearted approach to analysing the market, rather than the deeper, more anger-type arguments that could spring up, Broadly said.

Kind of our underlying joke is thats how bad we think it is, that rather than saying renters vs. homeowners lets take it to a whole different argument that doesnt bring that political lens to it.

Data Ventures/Stuff

The working behind Data Ventures findings that it may be cheaper in future to build on Mars than buy in NZ.

You can see this isnt sustainable for anyone, Broadly said.

Data Ventures are a wholly-owned subsidiary of Stats NZ, and act as an independent consultancy to draw on expertise and data from within the government organisation for paying clients.

The idea for this research came from Elon Musks recent announcement that he wants a city of one million people on Mars by 2050.

Broadly said using Musks predictions of costs had the advantage that anyone with complaints about the analysis could take them directly to the billionaire.

Data Ventures/Supplied

Data Ventures executive director Drew Broadly said the Mars-resettlement comparison was conducted as a kind of creative Friday exercise.

In the past, Data Ventures has worked with Tourism NZ and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to increase understanding of the domestic tourism market using anonymised telecom data.

The trajectory of New Zealands housing market prices was based on a QV house price index that showed house prices increased by 18.2 per cent in the year ending March 2021.

Data Ventures predictions were based on this increase continuing year-on-year.

Uncredited/AP

With just a couple of rovers and a tiny helicopter currently on Mars, congestion is unlikely to rival Auckland during rush hour any time soon.

The cost of buying an acre of Mars was taken from BuyMars.com, which Broadly concedes may not constitute a legally binding right to possession of the Martian surface.

According to Auckland Council in 2020, a residential-sized section in Auckland with no infrastructure or amenities would cost $132,665 over 3000 times the cost of Mars.

The big cost on the Mars-side of the ledger is transport.

While no-one enjoys sitting on the Southern Motorway at 5pm, a one-way trip to Mars is predicted to reduce in cost from roughly $14 billion to around $300,000 in future.

The median household size in New Zealand is 2.7 people according to Stats NZ, so a family trip would cost around $810,000.

Building an earthbag-style dome home on Mars, which would use Martian soil, was predicted to cost $35,520 in materials.

According to Data Ventures, a copy of Monthly Labor Review estimated 1337 man-hours to build a single-family home, so presuming Martian labour wages were similar to todays at $40, that would cost $53,480.

With all of that taken into account, the team compared it to housing costs in New Zealand if the 18.2 per cent yearly increase continued.

And there it was it became cheaper to build on Mars in 2040.

A blog post by Date Ventures on the topic noted Elon Musk may not be a reliable source for true costings of Mars travel, buying land on Mars may be illegal, Martian homes would be unfurnished, and there was a high risk of death involved in the move.

More here:

Building on Mars 'cheaper than owning in NZ by 2040', tongue-in-cheek research finds - Stuff.co.nz