Mars

A new NASA photo shows a small blue dot in the middle of a bumpy, rocky brown landscape. That landscape, the space agency says, is Mars, and the small blue dot? That's the Mars Curiosity rover as seen by NASA's own Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The photo was taken last month by the space agency's super powerful Mars telescope, which only takes photos a handful of times a year. The capturing of Curiosity, it seems, was a happy coincidence.

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When you hear or read about off-planet rovers, you probably think of unmanned, somewhat smaller vehicles built for exploration and scientific missions. This concept Mars rover, in contrast, looks like something the Dark Knight himself would ride into battle. More armored car than mobile lab, this Rover Concept from NASA’s “Summer of Mars” promotion isn’t meant to actually roam the Red Planet. It serves more as a seedbed for actual rover technologies, as well as an inspiration to those visiting the Kennedy Space Center complex.

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NASA has published a series of images showcasing the prototype of an inflatable greenhouse that may one day be used to grow food in Earth-like conditions...while on Mars. The greenhouse and others like it would exist to provide food for human astronauts who eventually make their way to the Red Planet. This prototype joins numerous studies conducted by the space agency that evaluate which foods are ideal for space growth and the best ways to encourage their growth in adverse conditions.

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Boeing has taken the wraps off its new Deep Space Gateway, a concept habitat that could serve as a crucial component for getting humans to Mars. According to Boeing, the company will use NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) to send the Deep Space Gateway up into space 'in the early 2020s,' doing so in four launches with components to assemble the habitat. Humans could use this as a stopping point of sorts on their way to Mars.

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NASA wants to send people to Mars, but it has some issues to overcome first. One of those issues is how it will feed its astronauts. Researchers have been studying the growth of plants in microgravity environments, among other things, and now a new team has announced the successful growth of a potato plant in Mars-like conditions. It is possible this breakthrough could also aid in growing potatoes in arid regions of Earth.

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One day in the very distant future, Mars may develop a ring composed of its own destroyed moon. Such a notion was recently put forth by a new study looking at its moon Phobos in particular, stating that in about 70 million years the moon could be close enough to the planet to break apart. When that happens, the debris will be pulled into a sort of field around the Red Planet, giving it its own ring.

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Have you wondered how much it would cost to buy a bottle of beer brewed on Mars? You may 'soon' get to find out. Budweiser has announced plans to research what it would take to setup microgravity brewing on Mars, where it hopes to be the first company to produce a beer. There are many challenges involved with such aspirations, of course, and we shouldn't expect to see any beer actually makes it way to the Red Planet for a long, long while.

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NASA had a bit of excitement earlier this week, with its Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s flight controllers having to send commends to the MAVEN spacecraft, making it perform an evasive maneuver to avoid smashing into one of Mars’ moons, Phobos. The spacecraft was forced to speed up by about 1.3ft/second, an adjustment that tweaked MAVEN’s orbit and allowed it to skirt by Phobos without incident.

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Mars was, in its ancient days, a wet place, at least at times. It is believed that lakes existed on the planet, and that water flowed in various places. How that was possible, though, has researchers baffled, at least according to NASA. As it turns out, ancient Mars wasn’t as hot as it is today, and according to current estimations, it seems ancient Mars would have been too cold for the water to be in a liquid state. Even the possibility of warmth from greenhouse gases is problematic.

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The University of Hawaii has announced that half a dozen “astronaut-like crewmembers” have entered into a geodesic dome located on Mauna Loa in Hawaii as part of a study on Mars habitability. In this case, the crew will live in the dome for eight months, providing vital data on both performance and human behavior that’ll help NASA prepare for future missions to the Red Planet. NASA funded the project.

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It's been a little while since we've heard from the Mars Curiosity rover, but over the past few weeks, it's been very busy examining what could be evidence of mud cracks in a slab of Martian rock. That slab of rock - dubbed Old Soaker by NASA scientists - features many raised ridges that could have been created by drying mud billions of years ago. If that's the case, then we'll have even more evidence for a wetter environment in the planet's past.

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According to NASA, Mars is home to an ice deposit that has about as much water as Lake Superior. The ice deposit was found using the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s ground-penetrating radar, says the space agency, with the deposit itself being located in the planet’s Utopia Planitia region. The sheet of soil covering the ice deposit prevents it from being turned into water vapor.

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