New research is suggesting that planet-wide dust storms on Mars could create a snow of corrosive chemicals toxic to life. These Martian storms generate a significant amount of static electricity, and could be capable of splitting carbon dioxide and water molecules apart. The elements could then reform into hydrogen peroxide molecules, and fall to the ground as a snow that would destroy organic molecules associated with life. This toxic chemical might be concentrated in the top layers of Martian soil, preventing life from surviving.
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No, Mars Won’t Look as Big as the Moon in August
Have you gotten a copy of the email yet? If you haven’t, you probably will. Forwarded from a friend, forwarded again and again until the original source is lost in the murky cloud of the Internet, it encourages you to get set for the experience of a lifetime. When MARS WILL LOOK AS LARGE AS THE FULL MOON!!!!! Is this going to happen? No. But there’s a strange gem of truth at the heart of this misunderstanding/hoax. I’ll give you the history and then everything you need to explain what’s going on to your excited but misinformed email forwarding friends.
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Explore Mars With Swarms of Rolling Minibots
MIT engineers and scientists are working on a strategy that could unleash a swarm of baseball sized robots onto the surface of Mars. These microbots would would be completely self contained with scientific instruments, and capable of rolling and hopping long distances on a mini fuel cell. One advantage to these rovers is that they could be sent into very dangerous locations – like lavatubes – since operators wouldn’t be too worried about losing a few.
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Iani Chaos on Mars
This image captured by ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft shows the Iani Chaos region on Mars, east of Valles Marineris. The region is dominated by large, heavily weathered mesas (flattened hills). On the left side of the image, these mesas are about 1 km tall and are up to 8 km wide. The terrain might have been formed by the collapse of the ground after subsurface water or ice was removed.
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Spirit Finds Meteorites?
NASA’s Spirit rover took this photograph of the surrounding hilly terrain, as well as several rocks. The two light-coloured, smooth rocks at the bottom of the picture might be iron meteorites. Mission controllers have named them “Zhong Shan” and “Allan Hills”. Spirit uncovered that the rocks have unusual morphologies and thermal emission spectrometer signatures that resemble a rock called “Heat Shield” discovered by Opportunity, and later identified as an iron meteorite.
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Detailed Look at Europe’s ExoMars Rover
Spirit and Opportunity have the Red Planet all to themselves for now, but ESA is planning to send a rover of its own to crawl the surface of Mars. The ExoMars rover is a wheeled robotic rover with a similar look to the NASA rovers, but it will have different science objectives and enhanced capabilities. Instead of looking for evidence of past water, ExoMars will be searching for traces of life, both past and present. If all goes well, ExoMars will launch to Mars in 2011.
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Desert Varnish Might Be a Clue for Life on Mars
Rocks in the desert can form a shiny coating known to geologists as desert varnish. This varnish forms over thousands of years, and can maintain a record of the life around it by binding DNA, amino acids, and other organic compounds into a silica glaze. Geologists from Imperial College in London think that future rovers should be equipped with instruments that can analyze Martian rocks for the presence of past life in this desert varnish.
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Phoenix Lander is Coming Together
NASA’s next mission to the surface of the Red Planet is the Phoenix Mars Lander, due for launch in August 2007. This week, engineers at the Phoenix Science Operations Center at the University of Arizona began connecting science payload instruments to a mock lander to see how well the components work with each other. Phoenix will touch down onto the surface of Mars in 2008, and examine the soil for evidence of past water, and to see if the habitat has the potential to support life.
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Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Continues to Lower its Orbit
NASA’s newest visitor to the Red Planet, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, is still in the process of shrinking its orbit, enroute to its final science orbit. When the spacecraft first arrived, its farthest point from the planet was 45,000 kilometers (28,000 miles). After 11 weeks of aerobraking operations, it’s reduced this distance to about 20,000 km (12,000 miles). Controllers estimate that the spacecraft will still need to sweep through Mars atmosphere 400 more times over the next 12 weeks to complete its orbital maneuvers. Its final mapping orbit will be approximately 255 to 320 km (160 to 200 mi) above the Martian surface.
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Ancient Martian Volcano Caldera
This image, taken by ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft, shows Apollinaris Patera, an ancient volcano caldera near Gusev Crater on Mars. The massive volcano measures 180 by 280 kilometres (112 by 174 miles) at its base and rises 5 km (3 miles) above the surrounding terrain. The bluish-tinted haze are thin clouds above the rim of the caldera.
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