NASA's Perseverance Rover is on the surface of the Red Planet, conducting science operations looking for evidence of ancient microbial life and water in the distant past. Among the instruments and tools aboard the rover are a pair of microphones that NASA uses to record sounds on the Red Planet. NASA's microphones add a new dimension to the exploration of Mars and so far have recorded hours of sounds.
NASA's Perseverance rover has been on the surface of Mars for just about eight months now, and in that time, it has taken samples of Martian rock to determine what secrets may be contained within. Perseverance, however, is not going to analyze these samples itself on the surface of Mars, but rather NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) are working on a multi-mission schedule to bring those samples back to Earth for analysis later this decade.
AMADEE-20 may not be on Mars but it sure looks a lot like it, and that's just why the new mock-habitat mission could be so important. Kicking off today, the Austrian Space Forum's big Mars base experiment will see six analog astronauts live for a month in the Ramon Crater in Israel, trying to shake out some of the glitches in the hope of smoothing future settlement efforts on the red planet.
NASA's Perseverance rover has been rolling around the surface of Mars for many months conducting investigations on various rock samples. Scientists believe in the distant past, Mars had an abundance of water, and at the time, Jezero Crater was a lake fed by an ancient river. Mission scientists have been analyzing rocks on the crater floor, which have been interpreted for now as igneous rocks, presumably the result of volcanic lava flow.
One of the main goals of the Perseverance rover as it investigates the surface of the Red Planet is to learn more about the watery past in Jezero Crater and to hunt for signs of microbial life. Perseverance researchers have published a paper offering new details on the hydrological cycle of Jezero Crater, which was an ancient lake but is now dry and barren. The paper is based on findings made by the Perseverance Mars rover offering detailed images of escarpments or scarps in the delta that formed when sediment accumulated at the mouth of an ancient river that fed the lake.
Engineers at the University of Cincinnati have developed a method of creating fuel using greenhouse gases. The process has the potential to be able to create fuel both here on Earth and on Mars. If the process can be perfected, it could prove to be exactly what NASA needs to provide fuel for rockets and other uses on the surface of Mars for future human missions.
In the image below, if you look closely, you can make out a white spec in the center of the photograph. That speck is NASA's Perseverance rover cruising the South Seitah region of the Jezero Crater on Mars. The image was taken from orbit around Mars by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). HiRise is a camera on the MRO, also known as High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment.
This past summer, NASA announced that it was seeking applications from professionals who had certain qualifications and who were interested in spending more than a month in a simulated Mars habitat. Fast-forward to today, October 1, and the space agency is back with the names of the four people who will spend 45 days living and working in HERA, the Human Exploration Research Analog developed for the project.
Scientists have long said that the surface of Mars shows a significant presence of water in its distant past. A new study conducted by UT Austin has found that massive floods from overflowing crater lakes played a significant role in shaping the planet's surface we know today. The team believes the flooding carved deep rifts into the surface and moved massive amounts of sediment.
NASA has confirmed that it has stopped sending commands to all of its spacecraft and rovers on the surface of Mars until the middle of October. The reason it's not sending commands to the Mars fleet is because Mars and Earth are currently on opposite sides of the sun, known as the Mars solar conjunction. This phenomenon happens every two years, and despite being unable to send commands, the missions operating on the Red Planet will continue to gather data during this period.
NASA's InSight mission has been on the surface of the Red Planet for a long time now and so far hasn't detected much in the way of seismic activity. NASA recently announced that InSight has finally detected quakes on Mars that are larger than a magnitude 4. One of the quakes was very interesting, lasting more than 90 minutes.
Scientists have discovered evidence of water on Mars in the distant past, despite that the Red Planet has no liquid water on its surface today. Part of the research that scientists are conducting regarding Mars is what happened to the water they believe it had in the distant past. A new study from Washington University in St. Louis has suggested a new theory of what may have contributed to the loss of water on the planet.