Mars News and Discussions

[weatheriscool]

UAE spacecraft takes close-up photos of Mars' little moon
https://phys.org/news/2023-04-uae-space ... -mars.html

by Marcia Dunn

A spacecraft around Mars has sent back the most detailed photos yet of the red planet's little moon.

The United Arab Emirates' Amal spacecraft flew within 62 miles (100 kilometers) of Deimos last month and the close-up shots were released Monday. Amal—Arabic for Hope—got a two-for-one when Mars photobombed some of the images. It was the closest a spacecraft has been to Deimos in almost a half-century.

The spacecraft also observed the little explored far side of the odd-shaped, cratered moon, just 9 miles by 7 miles by 7 miles (15 kilometers by 12 kilometers by 12 kilometers).

Mars' other moon, Phobos, is almost double that size and better understood since it orbits much closer to Mars—just 3,700 miles (6,000 kilometers) away, the closest of any planet's moon in our solar system.

Deimos' orbit around Mars stretches 14,000 miles (23,000 kilometers) out. That's close to the inner part of the spacecraft's orbit—"which is what made observing Deimos such a compelling idea," said the mission's lead scientist Hessa al-Matroushi.

[weatheriscool]

Scientists detect seismic waves traveling through Martian core for the first time
https://phys.org/news/2023-04-scientist ... -core.html
by University of Maryland

Scientists observed seismic waves traveling through Mars' core for the first time and confirmed model predictions of the core's composition.

An international research team—which included University of Maryland seismologists—used seismic data acquired by the NASA InSight lander to directly measure properties of Mars's core, finding a completely liquid iron-alloy core with high percentages of sulfur and oxygen. Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on April 24, 2023, these findings reveal new insights into how Mars formed and the geological differences between Earth and Mars that may ultimately play a role in sustaining planetary habitability.

"In 1906, scientists first discovered the Earth's core by observing how seismic waves from earthquakes were affected by traveling through it," said UMD Associate Professor of Geology Vedran Lekic, second author of the paper. "More than a hundred years later, we're applying our knowledge of seismic waves to Mars. With InSight, we're finally discovering what's at the center of Mars and what makes Mars so similar yet distinct from Earth."

[weatheriscool]

China's Mars rover finds signs of recent water in sand dunes
https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireS ... d-98944600
A new study suggests water on Mars may be more widespread and recent than previously thought
ByMARCIA DUNN AP Aerospace Writer
April 28, 2023, 11:10 AM

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Water may be more widespread and recent on Mars than previously thought, based on observations of Martian sand dunes by China's rover.

The finding highlights new, potentially fertile areas in the warmer regions of Mars where conditions might be suitable for life to exist, though more study is needed.

Friday's news comes days after mission leaders acknowledged that the Zhurong rover has yet to wake up since going into hibernation for the Martian winter nearly a year ago.

Its solar panels are likely covered with dust, choking off its power source and possibly preventing the rover from operating again, said Zhang Rongqiao, the mission's chief designer.

[weatheriscool]

Images from NASA's Perseverance may show record of wild Martian river
https://phys.org/news/2023-05-images-na ... rtian.html
by JPL/NASA

New images taken by NASA's Perseverance rover may show signs of what was once a rollicking river on Mars, one that was deeper and faster-moving than scientists have ever seen evidence for in the past. The river was part of a network of waterways that flowed into Jezero Crater, the area the rover has been exploring since landing more than two years ago.

Understanding these watery environments could help scientists in their efforts to seek out signs of ancient microbial life that may have been preserved in Martian rock.

Perseverance is exploring the top of a fan-shaped pile of sedimentary rock that stands 820 feet (250 meters) tall and features curving layers suggestive of flowing water. One question scientists want to answer is whether that water flowed in relatively shallow streams—closer to what NASA's Curiosity rover has found evidence of in Gale Crater—or a more powerful river system.

Stitched together from hundreds of images captured by Perseverance's Mastcam-Z instrument, two new mosaics suggest the latter, revealing important clues: coarse sediment grains and cobbles.

"Those indicate a high-energy river that's truckin' and carrying a lot of debris. The more powerful the flow of water, the more easily it's able to move larger pieces of material," said Libby Ives, a postdoctoral researcher at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which operates the Perseverance rover. With a background in studying Earth-based rivers, Ives has spent the last six months analyzing images of the Red Planet's surface. "It's been a delight to look at rocks on another planet and see processes that are so familiar," Ives said.

[weatheriscool]

Space scientists provide new insight into the evolution of Mars' atmosphere
https://phys.org/news/2023-05-space-sci ... -mars.html
by Laura Bandell, The Open University

Scientists at The Open University (OU) have analyzed isotopic measurements in the atmosphere of Mars, providing new information on the evolution of the Martian climate throughout history and the origin of surface organics on Mars.

The atmosphere of Mars, which is mostly made of carbon dioxide (CO2), is relatively enriched in "heavy" carbon (13C) with respect to Earth due to the preferential escape of "light" carbon (12C) to space over several billion years.

Scientists from the OU's Atmospheric Research and Surface Exploration group have analyzed data from the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) mission, which indicate that Martian carbon monoxide (CO) is depleted in heavy carbon instead.

[weatheriscool]

Researchers determine global thickness and density of Martian crust
https://phys.org/news/2023-05-global-th ... crust.html
by Barbara Vonarburg, ETH Zurich

A strong quake in the last year of the NASA Mars InSight mission, enabled researchers at ETH Zurich to determine the global thickness and density of the planet's crust. On average, the Martian crust much thicker than the Earth's or the moon's crust, and the planet's main source of heat is radioactive.

After more than three years of daily monitoring and with the power levels decreasing on InSight's seismometer, researchers were rewarded with data from a sizeable Marsquake in May 2022. The surface waves observed from this estimated 4.6 magnitude quake not only traveled from the quake's source to the measuring station, they also continued to travel around the entire planet several times. This data not only provided information about specific areas of Mars, but also enabled a global view of the planet.

[weatheriscool]

First-of-its-kind Mars livestream by ESA spacecraft interrupted at times by rain on Earth
https://phys.org/news/2023-06-first-of- ... craft.html
by Marcia Dunn

A European spacecraft around Mars sent its first livestream from the red planet to Earth on Friday to mark the 20th anniversary of its launch, but rain in Spain interfered at times.

The European Space Agency broadcast the livestream with views courtesy of its Mars Express, launched by a Russian rocket from Kazakhstan in 2003.

It took nearly 17 minutes for each picture to reach Earth, nearly 200 million miles (300 million kilometers) away, and another minute to get through the ground stations.

The transmission was disrupted at times by rainy weather at the deep space-relay antenna in Spain.

[weatheriscool]

Researchers discover jet streams in Mars' magnetosheath
https://phys.org/news/2023-06-jet-strea ... heath.html
by Sara-Lena Brännström, Umea University

A research team from Umeå University and the Swedish Institute of Space Physics in Kiruna has discovered jet streams in the magnetosheath of Mars using data collected by NASA's MAVEN spacecraft. This is the first time such a jet has been found in the magnetosheath of a planet other than Earth. The results are published in the journal Science Advances.

A magnetosheath jet is a clump of flowing plasma in the magnetosheath. It is distinguished by being faster or denser than its surroundings, sometimes both faster and denser. The magnetosheath is the part of space where the solar wind is forced to flow around a planet.

"Jet streams in magnetosheaths have been seen near Earth for 25 years and we were really curious if they could be found elsewhere," says Herbert Gunell, Associate Professor at Umeå University, who led the study.

NASA's MAVEN spacecraft has been in orbit around Mars since 2014 to study the Martian atmosphere and its interaction with the solar wind.

[caltrek]

Mars Rover Sends a Stunning Panorama of the Red Planet Home to Earth
by Kiona Smith
June 14, 2023

Introduction:

(Inverse) It takes a lot of work to send a postcard from Mars.

NASA’s Curiosity Rover recently pointed its navigation cameras back the way it had come to capture two panoramic photos of the rover’s tracks leading out of Marker Band Valley. Curiosity imaging team members created a composite of the images, which was released Monday.

You can still get a hint that it’s a composite: The giveaway is in the drastically different angles of the shadows on each side of the image. One panorama shows a mid-morning view, while the other shows late afternoon — both timed to take advantage of the most dramatic natural lighting and the dark, deep shadows of Martian winter.

The Marker Band Valley gets its name from a thin, dark, and surprisingly tough layer of rock that runs along the valley’s walls. Scientists aren’t sure exactly what the marker band is made of because the frustratingly tough rock has resisted all of Curiosity’s efforts to drill out a sample. But it’s home to surprising traces of an ancient lake in an area that mission planners expected to have been dry even during Mars’s warmer, wetter past, Curiosity found layers of rippled rock, still bearing the texture left behind by waves in an ancient lake.

If you want to send home a panoramic view from Mars, though, it’s not quite as easy as clicking the panorama option on your phone’s camera and then panning around the horizon (yet). Combined, the two images took about 15 minutes to capture, and each one arrived on Earth as five individual photos, which NASA teams had to carefully stitch together using computer software.

Read more here: https://www.inverse.com/science/a-post ... ing-view


This panorama is actually ten separate photos, carefully stitched together and with false color added.
NASA

[weatheriscool]

Data from InSight suggests Mars has an all-liquid core and internal mass anomalies
https://phys.org/news/2023-06-insight-m ... ernal.html
by Bob Yirka , Phys.org

A team of planetary scientists from Belgium, the U.S., France and Germany has found evidence from the InSight lander that suggests Mars has an all-liquid core and internal mass anomalies. In their paper published in the journal Nature, the group describes their analysis of data sent back to Earth from the lander.

As the research team notes, determining the interior characteristics of the solar system's planets is hindered by their inaccessibility. In this instance, they were referring to work by research teams attempting to determine the inner makeup of Mars. To date, no one has been able to show whether its core is solid or liquid, for example—a characteristic that could impact work exploring whether the plane

t ever harbored life.