Tag: Mars

  • January’s Night Sky Notes: The Red Planet

    January’s Night Sky Notes: The Red Planet

    Have you looked up at the night sky this season and noticed a bright object sporting a reddish hue to the left of Orion? This is none other than the planet Mars! January will be an excellent opportunity to spot…

  • New Team to Assess NASA’s Mars Sample Return Architecture Proposals

    New Team to Assess NASA’s Mars Sample Return Architecture Proposals

    NASA announced Wednesday a new strategy review team will assess potential architecture adjustments for the agency’s Mars Sample Return Program, which aims to bring back scientifically selected samples from Mars, and is a key step in NASA’s quest to better…

  • NASA: New Insights into How Mars Became Uninhabitable

    NASA: New Insights into How Mars Became Uninhabitable

    NASA’s Curiosity rover, currently exploring Gale crater on Mars, is providing new details about how the ancient Martian climate went from potentially suitable for life – with evidence for widespread liquid water on the surface – to a surface that…

  • Celebrating 10 Years at Mars with NASA’s MAVEN Mission

    Celebrating 10 Years at Mars with NASA’s MAVEN Mission

    A decade ago, on Sept. 21, 2014, NASA’s MAVEN (Mars Atmospheric and Volatile EvolutioN) spacecraft entered orbit around Mars, beginning its ongoing exploration of the Red Planet’s upper atmosphere. The mission has produced a wealth of data about how Mars’…

  • NASA’s Hubble, MAVEN Help Solve the Mystery of Mars’ Escaping Water

    NASA’s Hubble, MAVEN Help Solve the Mystery of Mars’ Escaping Water

    Mars was once a very wet planet as is evident in its surface geological features. Scientists know that over the last 3 billion years, at least some water went deep underground, but what happened to the rest? Now, NASA’s Hubble…

  • UPDATED: 10 Things for Mars 10

    UPDATED: 10 Things for Mars 10

    Scientists from around the world are gathering this week in California to take stock of the state of science from Mars and discuss goals for the next steps in exploration of the Red Planet. In the spirit of Mars 10,…

  • Mapping the Red Planet with the Power of Open Science

    Mapping the Red Planet with the Power of Open Science

    Mars rovers can only make exciting new discoveries thanks to human scientists making careful decisions about their next stop. The Mars 2020 mission is aimed at exploring the geology of Jezero Crater and seeking signs of ancient microbial life on…

  • Major Martian Milestones

    Major Martian Milestones

    There’s good news from NASA’s Cloudspotting on Mars project! That’s the project that invites you to help identify exotic clouds high in the Martian atmosphere. Congratulations to the Cloudspotting on Mars team and all the volunteers who have helped spot…

  • Why is Methane Seeping on Mars? NASA Scientists Have New Ideas

    Why is Methane Seeping on Mars? NASA Scientists Have New Ideas

    The most surprising revelation from NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover — that methane is seeping from the surface of Gale Crater — has scientists scratching their heads. Living creatures produce most of the methane on Earth. But scientists haven’t found convincing…

  • NASA Delivers Science Instrument to JAXA’s Martian Moons Mission

    NASA Delivers Science Instrument to JAXA’s Martian Moons Mission

    On March 14, NASA delivered its gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer instrument to JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) for integration onto JAXA’s MMX (Martian Moons eXploration) mission spacecraft and final system-level testing. NASA’s Mars-moon Exploration with Gamma Ray and Neutrons (MEGANE)…