Mars News and Discussions

weatheriscool
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New clues about early atmosphere on Mars suggest a wet planet capable of supporting life
https://phys.org/news/2022-09-clues-ear ... lanet.html
by SETI Institute

New research published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters suggests that Mars was born wet, with a dense atmosphere allowing warm-to-hot oceans for millions of years. To reach this conclusion, researchers developed the first model of the evolution of the Martian atmosphere that links the high temperatures associated with Mars's formation in a molten state through to the formation of the first oceans and atmosphere.

This model shows that—as on the modern Earth—water vapor in the Martian atmosphere was concentrated in the lower atmosphere and that the upper atmosphere of Mars was "dry" because the water vapor would condense out as clouds at lower levels in the atmosphere. Molecular hydrogen (H2), by contrast, did not condense and was transported to the upper atmosphere of Mars, where it was lost to space. This conclusion—that water vapor condensed and was retained on early Mars whereas molecular hydrogen did not condense and escaped—allows the model to be linked directly to measurements made by spacecraft, specifically, the Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity.

"We believe we have modeled an overlooked chapter in Mars's earliest history in the time immediately after the planet formed. To explain the data, the primordial Martian atmosphere must have been very dense (more than ~1000x as dense as the modern atmosphere) and composed primarily of molecular hydrogen (H2)," said Kaveh Pahlevan, SETI Institute research scientist.
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A virtual hiking map for Jezero crater, the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover landing site

by Europlanet
Prospective Mars explorers can now take a hike around the landing site of NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover with an interactive map loaded with orbital imagery, terrain data as well as synthetic and real 3D panoramic views of Jezero crater and its surrounding area. The map, which can be accessed through a normal web browser, has been presented today at the Europlanet Science Congress (EPSC) 2022 in Granada, Spain, by Sebastian Walter of the Freie Universität Berlin.

"The map is the perfect tool for planning a future visit to Mars, with an interactive interface where you can choose from different available base datasets. Some of the slopes are pretty steep, so watch out for those if you want to avoid too much oxygen consumption!" said Sebastian Walter.

"To get a real feeling of what to expect on your future Mars trip, you can click on one of the waypoint marker symbols to enter either a fullscreen 3D view or, if you have a Virtual Reality setup, to enter a fully immersive environment. You can even listen to the sounds of the rover if you stand close by, but please don't touch it—otherwise you would contaminate the probes."
https://phys.org/news/2022-09-virtual-h ... -mars.html
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New evidence for liquid water beneath the south polar ice cap of Mars
https://phys.org/news/2022-09-evidence- ... polar.html
by Sarah Collins, University of Cambridge

An international team of researchers has revealed new evidence for the possible existence of liquid water beneath the south polar ice cap of Mars.

The researchers, led by the University of Cambridge, used spacecraft laser-altimeter measurements of the shape of the upper surface of the ice cap to identify subtle patterns in its height. They then showed that these patterns match computer model predictions for how a body of water beneath the ice cap would affect the surface.

Their results agree with earlier ice-penetrating radar measurements that were originally interpreted to show a potential area of liquid water beneath the ice. There has been debate over the liquid water interpretation from the radar data alone, with some studies suggesting the radar signal is not due to liquid water.

The results, reported in the journal Nature Astronomy, provide the first independent line of evidence, using data other than radar, that there is liquid water beneath Mars' south polar ice cap.

"The combination of the new topographic evidence, our computer model results, and the radar data make it much more likely that at least one area of subglacial liquid water exists on Mars today, and that Mars must still be geothermally active in order to keep the water beneath the ice cap liquid," said Professor Neil Arnold from Cambridge's Scott Polar Research Institute, who led the research.

Like Earth, Mars has thick water ice caps at both poles, roughly equivalent in combined volume to the Greenland Ice Sheet. Unlike Earth's ice sheets however, which are underlain by water-filled channels and even large subglacial lakes, the polar ice caps on Mars have until recently been thought to be frozen solid all the way to their beds due to the cold Martian climate.
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India’s Mars Orbiter Goes Offline, Declared End-of-Life

By Ryan Whitwam on October 5, 2022 at 9:22 am
https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/340 ... nd-of-life
India became only the fourth nation in history to send a spacecraft to Mars orbit when the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) took up residence above the red planet. Now, eight years later, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) reports that MOM has gone offline, and it is not expected to come back. It’s sad to see MOM go, but the mission lasted much longer than its expected six to 10-month lifespan.

MOM, also known as Mangalyaan, arrived in orbit of Mars in September 2014, less than a year after it launched aboard an ISRO Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle. MOM was designed to be a technology demonstration mission, but it was still equipped to do science. It carried instruments to analyze the planet’s atmosphere, as well as a high-resolution camera. It beamed back numerous images of surface details, as well as data on the planet’s thin atmosphere and dust storms.

It’s unclear what finally caused the aging satellite to go offline, but the agency has confirmed it is not recoverable. It’s possible Mangalyaan ran through the last of its fuel — it had a limited supply of 1,880 pounds (852 kilograms) at launch. Without fuel, the spacecraft cannot control its attitude to keep the communication array pointed at Earth. There’s also some speculation that the satellite’s automated recovery system failed, causing it to change orientation and point the antenna away from Earth.
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InSight Mars lander waits out dust storm
https://phys.org/news/2022-10-insight-m ... storm.html
by Jet Propulsion Laboratory
NASA's InSight mission, which is expected to end in the near future, saw a recent drop in power generated by its solar panels as a continent-size dust storm swirls over Mars' southern hemisphere. First observed on Sept. 21, 2022, by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), the storm is roughly 2,175 miles (3,500 kilometers) from InSight and initially had little impact on the lander.

The mission carefully monitors the lander's power level, which has been steadily declining as dust accumulates on its solar arrays. By Monday, Oct. 3, the storm had grown large enough and was lofting so much dust that the thickness of the dusty haze in the Martian atmosphere had increased by nearly 40% around InSight. With less sunlight reaching the lander's panels, its energy fell from 425 watt-hours per Martian day, or sol, to just 275 watt-hours per sol.

InSight's seismometer has been operating for about 24 hours every other Martian day. But the drop in solar power does not leave enough energy to completely charge the batteries every sol. At the current rate of discharge, the lander would be able to operate only for several weeks. So to conserve energy, the mission will turn off InSight's seismometer for the next two weeks.

"We were at about the bottom rung of our ladder when it comes to power. Now we're on the ground floor," said InSight's project manager, Chuck Scott of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. "If we can ride this out, we can keep operating into winter—but I'd worry about the next storm that comes along."
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Early Mars Was Habitable for Microbes, at Least for a While
by Candace Cheung
October 10, 2022

Introduction:
(Courthouse News) — Researchers may be able to answer David Bowie’s famous question: Is there life on Mars? A new study indicates that Mars’ surface may have been habitable for microbes over 3.7 billion years ago.

In a study published Monday in Nature Astronomy, scientists describe how they ran simulations combining models for the environmental conditions on early Mars and ecological processes based on microorganisms on early Earth.

On Earth, hydrogenotrophic methanogens, microbes that consumed hydrogen and produced methane, were some of the earliest forms of life, and it has long been theorized that the Noachian period on Mars would have been a likely time period when surface and atmospheric conditions would have aligned to create the ideal circumstances for life. The new study is the first to quantitively measure the viability of these simple microbial organisms.
Early Mars’ comparatively dense atmosphere was possibly warmer than it is today, and the planet’s surface is hypothesized to have been favorable to the presence of large bodies of liquid water, allowing for the possible emergence of microbial lifeforms similar to early Earth’s.

The study used a three-prong approach to model the development of these microbial lifeforms, according to Boris Sauterey, the study's lead author who works with both the University of Arizona and the Institut de Biologie de l’Ecole Normale Supérieure in France. Sauterey and his colleagues had previously studied methanogens on their own planet.
Read more here: https://www.courthousenews.com/early-m ... udy-says/
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mars is a good case study in being too small to maintain an atmosphere that is able to sustain such favorable conditions for life. I think a planet that is solid and has more atmosphere is probably more likely to be favorable to life and probably in a larger habitual zone. Of course this is just a guess on my part. ;)
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Magma on Mars likely, study finds
https://phys.org/news/2022-10-magma-mars.html
by ETH Zurich
Since 2018, when the NASA InSight Mission deployed the SEIS seismometer on the surface of Mars, seismologists and geophysicists at ETH Zurich have been listening to the seismic pings of more than 1,300 marsquakes. Again and again, the researchers registered smaller and larger marsquakes.

A detailed analysis of the quakes' location and spectral character brought a surprise. With epicenters originating in the vicinity of the Cerberus Fossae—a region consisting of a series of rifts or graben—these quakes tell a new story. A story that suggests volcanism still plays an active role in shaping the Martian surface.

Mars shows signs of life and youth
An international team of researchers, led by ETH Zurich, analyzed a cluster of more than 20 recent marsquakes that originated in the Cerberus Fossae graben system. From the seismic data, scientists concluded that the low-frequency quakes indicate a potentially warm source that could be explained by present day molten lava, i.e., magma at that depth, and volcanic activity on Mars. Specifically, they found that the quakes are located mostly in the innermost part of Cerberus Fossae.

When they compared seismic data with observational images of the same area, they also discovered darker deposits of dust not only in the dominant direction of the wind, but in multiple directions surrounding the Cerebus Fossae Mantling Unit.

"The darker shade of the dust signifies geological evidence of more recent volcanic activity—perhaps within the past 50,000 years—relatively young, in geological terms," explains Simon Staehler, the lead author of the paper, which has now been published in the journal Nature Astronomy. Staehler is a Senior Scientist working in the Seismology and Geodynamics group led by Professor Domenico Giardini at the Institute of Geophysics, ETH Zurich.
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Traces of ancient ocean discovered on Mars

by Adrienne Berard, Pennsylvania State University
https://phys.org/news/2022-10-ancient-ocean-mars.html
A recently released set of topography maps provides new evidence for an ancient northern ocean on Mars. The maps offer the strongest case yet that the planet once experienced sea-level rise consistent with an extended warm and wet climate, not the harsh, frozen landscape that exists today.

"What immediately comes to mind as one the most significant points here is that the existence of an ocean of this size means a higher potential for life," said Benjamin Cardenas, assistant professor of geosciences at Penn State and lead author on the study recently published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets.

"It also tells us about the ancient climate and its evolution. Based on these findings, we know there had to have been a period when it was warm enough and the atmosphere was thick enough to support this much liquid water at one time."

There has long been debate in the scientific community about whether Mars had an ocean in its low-elevation northern hemisphere, Cardenas explained. Using topography data, the research team was able to show definitive evidence of a roughly 3.5-billion-year-old shoreline with substantial sedimentary accumulation, at least 900 meters thick, that covered hundreds of thousands of square kilometers.
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NASA's InSight lander detects stunning meteoroid impact on Mars
https://phys.org/news/2022-10-nasa-insi ... oroid.html
by Jet Propulsion Laboratory

NASA's InSight lander recorded a magnitude 4 marsquake last Dec. 24, but scientists learned only later the cause of that quake: a meteoroid strike estimated to be one of the biggest seen on Mars since NASA began exploring the cosmos. What's more, the meteoroid excavated boulder-size chunks of ice buried closer to the Martian equator than ever found before—a discovery with implications for NASA's future plans to send astronauts to the Red Planet.

Scientists determined the quake resulted from a meteoroid impact when they looked at before-and-after images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and spotted a new, yawning crater. Offering a rare opportunity to see how a large impact shook the ground on Mars, the event and its effects are detailed in two papers published Thursday, Oct. 27, in the journal Science.

The meteoroid is estimated to have spanned 16 to 39 feet (5 to 12 meters)—small enough that it would have burned up in Earth's atmosphere, but not in Mars' thin atmosphere, which is just 1% as dense as our planet's. The impact, in a region called Amazonis Planitia, blasted a crater roughly 492 feet (150 meters) across and 70 feet (21 meters) deep. Some of the ejecta thrown by the impact flew as far as 23 miles (37 kilometers) away.

With images and seismic data documenting the event, this is believed to be one of the largest craters ever witnessed forming any place in the solar system. Many larger craters exist on the Red Planet, but they are significantly older and predate any Mars mission.
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