An international team of researchers, co-led by ETH Zurich and Imperial College London, has derived the first estimate of global meteorite impacts on Mars using seismic data. Their findings indicate that between 280 to 360 ...
Planetary Sciences
Jun 28, 2024
0
259
Atmospheric scientists get a little more excited with every rock core NASA's Perseverance Mars rover seals in its titanium sample tubes, which are being gathered for eventual delivery to Earth as part of the Mars Sample Return ...
Planetary Sciences
Jun 20, 2024
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12
NASA is actively working to return surface samples from Mars in the next few years, which they hope will help us better understand whether ancient life once existed on the red planet's surface billions of years ago. But what ...
Astrobiology
May 27, 2024
1
30
A research team using the ChemCam instrument onboard NASA's Curiosity rover discovered higher-than-usual amounts of manganese in lakebed rocks within Gale Crater on Mars, which indicates that the sediments were formed in ...
Astrobiology
May 1, 2024
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4682
In the months ahead, two of NASA's Mars spacecraft will have an unprecedented opportunity to study how solar flares—giant explosions on the sun's surface—could affect robots and future astronauts on the Red Planet.
Planetary Sciences
Apr 29, 2024
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35
You may have flown a flight simulator in a computer game or at a science museum. Landing without crashing is always the hardest part. But that's nothing compared to the challenge that engineers are facing to develop a flight ...
Space Exploration
Apr 16, 2024
1
56
The period that liquid water was present on the surface of Mars may have been shorter than previously thought. Channel landforms called gullies, previously thought to be formed exclusively by liquid water, can also be formed ...
Planetary Sciences
Mar 14, 2024
0
7
In December 2022, NASA's MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN) mission observed the dramatic and unexpected "disappearance" of a stream of charged particles constantly emanating off the sun, known as the solar wind. ...
Astronomy
Dec 11, 2023
0
64
Astronauts often react with awe when they see the curvature of Earth below the International Space Station. Now Mars scientists are getting a taste of what that's like, thanks to NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter, which completed ...
Planetary Sciences
Nov 28, 2023
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67
For the first time in history, two planets have been home to testing future aircraft designs. In this world, a new rotor that could be used with next-generation Mars helicopters was recently tested at NASA's Jet Propulsion ...
Space Exploration
Nov 22, 2023
6
106
Mars, the fourth planet from the Sun, has a very different atmosphere than that of the Earth. There has been much interest in studying its composition since the recent detection of a small amount of methane, which may signal life on Mars; it could also be a geochemical process or the result of volcanic or hydrothermal activity.
The atmosphere of Mars is relatively thin, and the atmospheric pressure on the surface varies from around 30 Pa (0.03 kPa) on Olympus Mons's peak to over 1155 Pa (1.155 kPa) in the depths of Hellas Planitia, with a mean surface level pressure of 600 Pa (0.6 kPa, or 6 millibars, or 0.087 psi), compared to Earth's 101.3 kPa, and a total mass of 25 teratonnes, compared to Earth's 5148 teratonnes. However, the scale height of the atmosphere is about 11 km, somewhat higher than Earth's 7 km. The atmosphere on Mars consists of 95% carbon dioxide, 3% nitrogen, and 1.6% argon, and contains traces of oxygen, water, and methane, for a mean molecular weight of 43.34 g/mole. The atmosphere is quite dusty, giving the Martian sky a tawny color when seen from the surface; data from the Mars Exploration Rovers indicate that the suspended dust particles are roughly 1.5 micrometres across.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
