Australian scientists who modeled conditions on Mars to examine how much of the Red Planet was habitable said that “large regions” could sustain life. Charley Lineweaver’s team, from the Australian National University, compared models of temperature and pressure conditions on Earth with those on Mars to estimate how much of the distant planet was livable for Earth-like organisms. While just one percent of Earth’s volume — from core to upper atmosphere — was occupied by life, Lineweaver said their world-first modeling showed three percent of Mars was habitable, though most of it was...
Russia could join ExoMars as full partner
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Russia could become a full partner in a planned U.S.-European Mars exploration project, a European Space Agency (ESA) spokesman has said. The Space News International website quoted Franco Bonacina as saying on Thursday that senior NASA, ESA and Russian space agency Roscosmos officials have agreed to continue talks on the issue. The project that ESA calls ExoMars is facing difficulties due to a lack of financing from NASA. Bonacina said on Thursday that ESA Science Director Alvaro Gimenez Canete hosted Charles J. Gay, NASA Associate Administrator, and deputy Roscosmos head Anatoly Shilov at ESA headquarters on Wednesday. The meeting “ended...
New Tool for Touring...
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An improved tool debuts today for viewing channels, dunes, boulders and other features revealed in the huge image files from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The new tool, HiView, offers the best way to take a...
Welcome back
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The record-breaking simulated mission to Mars has ended with smiling faces after 17 months. Mars500’s six brave volunteers stepped out of their ‘spacecraft’ today to be welcomed by the waiting scientists – happy that the venture had worked even better than expected. Mars500, the first...
Mars500 prepare to o...
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The 520 days of isolation for the Mars500 crew will end on 4 November, when the hatch of their ‘spacecraft’ is opened for the first time since June last year. Scientists eagerly await the final samples as the crew count the hours to liberty. During the 17-month simulated Mars mission, the...
Wet and Mild: Caltec...
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PASADENA, Calif.—Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have directly determined the surface temperature of early Mars for the first time, providing evidence that’s consistent with a warmer and wetter Martian past. By analyzing carbonate minerals in a...
SpaceX To Develop Fu...
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During a speech at the National Press Club today, SpaceX founder, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Technology Officer Elon Musk made what he called an “exciting” announcement – SpaceX will develop a fully reusable space transportation system. Perhaps more exciting, and a bit...
Wetter Mars Atmosphe...
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The atmosphere on Mars contains up to a hundred times more water than previously suspected, according to a new study that could change our understanding of the Martian climate, and could suggest that more water existed on the surface of the Red Planet in its early history. Using data from the...
NASA Announces Desig...
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NASA has selected the design of a new Space Launch System that will take the agency’s astronauts farther into space than ever before, create high-quality jobs here at home, and provide the cornerstone for America’s future human space exploration efforts. This new heavy-lift...
NASA Mars Research H...
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A NASA-led team has used radar sounding technology developed to explore the subsurface of Mars to create high-resolution maps of freshwater aquifers buried deep beneath an Earth desert, in the first use of airborne sounding radar for aquifer mapping. The research may help scientists better...
Methane Debate Split...
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Observations over the last decade suggest that methane clouds form briefly over Mars during the summer months. The discovery has left many scientists scratching their heads, since it doesn’t fit into models of the martian atmosphere. “The reports are extraordinary,” says...
New Evidence for Col...
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The existence of an ancient, frigid ocean on Mars that was surrounded by glaciers could explain the unusual minerals found making up the northern lowlands of the Red Planet, a new study suggests. These findings add new evidence to the idea that ancient Mars was once cold and wet, not cold and...
The first nuclear po...
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The first nuclear power plant being considered for production of electricity for manned or unmanned bases on the Moon, Mars and other planets may really look like it came from outer space, according to a leader of the project who spoke here today at the 242nd National Meeting & Exposition...
Synthetic Life Could...
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Synthetic organisms engineered to use carbon dioxide as a raw material could help humans settle Mars one day, a prominent biologist says. Man-made, CO2-munching lifeforms are already in the works, geneticist Craig Venter told a crowd here during an event called TEDxNASA@SiliconValley Wednesday...
Possibility of Mars ...
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U.S. scientists say they’ll recreate conditions on Mars in a laboratory to see if microbial life might exist in salt droplets observed on the red planet. A NASA project led by the University of Michigan will begin three years after beads of liquid brine were first photographed on one of...
Lava, not water, said cause of Mars beds
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A U.S. researcher says large, river-like channels seen on Mars were created not by water but by massive, fast-moving lava flows of a type we don’t see on Earth. Geoscience Professor David Leverington at Texas Tech University says what we interpret as the largest ancient riverbeds on Mars most likely were created by low-viscosity lava flows that ravaged the planet’s surface. Leverington says recent high-resolution photographs and mineralogical data support his theory for why lava is a much more likely culprit for creating the largest class of the outflow channels and canyons, some of which stretch up to 1,800 miles. The channels...
Potential Mars Water...
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Claims of water on Mars have been made before, but a new discovery of potential liquid water on the Red Planet’s surface last week is still making waves in the science world. What differentiates the new find from previous discoveries is the fact that it’s the strongest evidence yet...
‘Red Dragon...
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The search for signs of life on Mars may have just gotten a lot cheaper. NASA is working with private spaceflight firm Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) to plan a mission that would search for evidence of life buried in the Martian dirt. The NASA science hardware would fly to the Red...
NASA Invaded Red Planet with Viking Mars Landing
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On Mars Day every year, people celebrate the first spacecraft to successfully land on Mars — NASA’s Viking 1, which touched down on the Red Planet 35 years ago. The craft that landed July 20, 1976, the first of many visitors to Mars, had been designed to work for 90 days, but it continued gathering data for more than six years. In doing so, Viking 1 helped answer many questions about the nature of Earth’s neighbor, but it also left behind a mystery that remains tantalizingly unsolved to this very day: Is there evidence of life on Mars? Before Viking 1 arrived, scientists had no high-resolution images of the Martian surface....
NASA in Australia fo...
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NASA says it is using a remote region of Australia’s outback as a training ground for planetary scientists preparing to send a new rover to Mars. The Pilbara region in northwest Australia was chosen as one of Earth’s closest matches to the landscape researchers expect the rover to...
SpaceX Breaks Ground for Falcon Heavy
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Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.– SpaceX (Space Exploration Technologies) today took another major step toward the first launch of the Falcon Heavy (the rocket aimed for Mars exploration). This will be the world’s most powerful rocket, with more than twice the payload-to-orbit capacity of the space shuttle, but at only one third the cost of the Boeing/Lockheed Delta IV Heavy. The Falcon Heavy will be the first ever rocket to break the $1,000-per-pound-to-orbit barrier, less than a tenth as much as the Shuttle. SpaceX CEO and chief rocket designer Elon Musk was joined by California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, 30th Space Wing Commander Colonel...
NASA Research Offers...
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NASA scientists are seeing new evidence that suggests traces of water on Mars are under a thin varnish of iron oxide, or rust, similar to conditions found on desert rocks in California’s Mojave Desert. Mars could be spotted with many more patches of carbonates than originally suspected....