Mars News and Discussions

[firestar464]

The Martian New Year has arrived

https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... -new-year/

[firestar464]

Did NASA's Perseverance rover really find organics on Mars? These scientists aren't so sure

https://www.space.com/space-exploration ... nt-so-sure

I suppose this is a good reason to go to Mars. Still wouldn't dedicate an entire colony just to research this though.

[firestar464]

Making Mars's moons: Supercomputers offer 'disruptive' new explanation

https://phys.org/news/2024-11-mars-moon ... ation.html

[weatheriscool]

Did NASA's Perseverance rover really find organics on Mars? These scientists aren't so sure

https://www.space.com/space-exploration ... nt-so-sure

I suppose this is a good reason to go to Mars. Still wouldn't dedicate an entire colony just to research this though.

I'd go to mars for a few reasons
1. To make humanity extinction proof. At least more so. Lets say earth has a nuclear war? Humans will survive on mars. Or an asteroid impacts the pacific ocean creating a mile high tsunami wiping out most of our advance tech??? Well, some of it will be on mars and can back fill.

2. Resources that don't harm the environment or animal life. Lets be honest we can rip into mars without concern unlike earth. We can get that metal and expand the wealth of our species...This will also be done on the moon and outwards into the solar system.

3. A base to launch towards ceres, asteroid belt and outwards. The goal should be 1. exploration but also as I said resources 2.
Ceres and the asteroids have a lot of water and resources...Once we make it to the larger moons of Jupiter like Europa,etc and onto titan we can have worlds to set up dome cities..This my friend will make humanity even more extinction proof.

We're only going to get outside the solar system to other habitual planets unless we develop warp drive by planet, asteroid and moon hoping our way outwards. Why be against exploration? because you don't have the balls doesn't mean millions of others don't.

[firestar464]

IDK when this became about "balls." It's about necessity, nothing more, nothing less.

I'm not exactly sure resource exploitation wouldn't cause environmental effects, as we simply don't know enough about what lies beneath the surface of Mars. Furthermore it would be a better idea to build a spaceport on the Moon first, as there's even less gravity there.

The one point I can understand is Ceres and asteroid mining. I suppose we could build a secondary spaceport on Mars staffed by rotating shifts of researchers and technicians. This would eliminate the need for a full-scale colony.

Still contemplating the human extinction bit.

[Powers]

Still contemplating the human extinction bit.

Well it's at least better to have a backup somewhere else than only one.

[weatheriscool]

Five Unmanned SpaceX Starships to Mars in 2026 with Thousands of Teslabots
November 24, 2024 by Brian Wang

Elon Musk has said that SpaceX will send five unmanned Starships to Mars in 2026. The launch window is about October 2024 to January 2025.

The 1000 tons of payload will include thousands of Teslabots and dozens of cybertrucks.

What will this mean for Tesla, SpaceX and the future.

What will the Teslabots build on Mars? Landing pads, solar energy generation, oxygen and fuel.

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2024/11/f ... abots.html

[firestar464]

Oldest direct evidence of hot water activity on Mars found

https://phys.org/news/2024-11-oldest-ev ... -mars.html

Curiosity Cracked Open a Rock on Mars And Found a Big Surprise

https://www.sciencealert.com/curiosity- ... g-surprise

[firestar464]

Elon Musk has pledged to settle Mars. A prize-winning book offers a reality check

https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/22/science/ ... index.html

[caltrek]

Perseverance Reaches Rim of Jezero Crater
by Jeff Hecht
December 17, 2024

Introduction:

(Sky & Telescope) On December 10th, after nearly 4 years on Mars, NASA’s Perseverance rover reached the rim of Jezero Crater. From a place on the rim dubbed “Lookout Hill,” its view stretched as far as 60 kilometers (40 miles) across the Martian surface. The rim crest also marks a geologic transition from rocks that fell inside the crater after it formed 3.9 billion years ago to rocks thrown outside the crater by the impact and a new region for the rover to explore.

Evidence that a lake formed in the crater floor after the impact made Jezero a tantalizing place to search for signs that the early Martian environment might have been able to support life — the mission’s top priority. The team’s geologists also wanted to investigate the ancient Martian crust, so they navigated Perseverance up the crater wall to a site from which the rover could access the ancient rocks they hoped to find on the outer edge of the rim.

Perseverance landed near a broad fan of sediment within Jezero on February 18, 2021, and began a series of four scientific campaigns examining different regions that had been inundated with water 3.7 billion years ago. The last of these examined a site called “Cheyava Falls,” where the delta’s rocks showed signs of wet chemical reactions considered possible biosignatures. The rover collected samples there, and elsewhere, that NASA hopes could be retrieved by a later mission and brought to Earth for more exhaustive analysis

Read more here: https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy ... o-crater/

[weatheriscool]

[weatheriscool]

JPL Offers Sneak Peek at Ingenuity Helicopter's Possible Successor
The Mars Chopper concept is a bigger, more powerful Mars helicopter.
By Ryan Whitwam January 2, 2025

Almost one year ago, NASA's Ingenuity helicopter performed its final flight on Mars. The drone was designed only as a technology demonstration, but its incredible success has made aerial exploration a key part of the agency's plans for the red planet. We're now getting a glimpse of the successor to Ingenuity, an aircraft dubbed the Mars Chopper. It's bigger and more capable than Ingenuity, but it's only a concept for now.


Ingenuity rode to Mars attached to the underside of the Perseverance rover, aiming to complete just five flights. It ended up making 72 flights before a navigation glitch caused it to land hard and damage the rotors.

https://www.extremetech.com/science/jpl ... -successor

[weatheriscool]

NASA proposes cheaper, quicker way to get Mars rocks and soil to Earth
https://phys.org/news/2025-01-nasa-chea ... -soil.html
by Marcia Dunn

NASA is pitching a cheaper and quicker way of getting rocks and soil back from Mars, after seeing its original plan swell to $11 billion.

Administrator Bill Nelson presented a revised scenario Tuesday, less than two weeks before stepping down as NASA's chief when President-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated.

Nelson said he "pulled the plug" months ago on the original sample return plan given the soaring costs and the delay in getting anything back from Mars before 2040.

NASA last year asked industry and others to come up with better options to ensure the samples collected in cigar-size tubes by NASA's Perseverance rover arrive here in the 2030s, well ahead of astronauts venturing to the red planet.

"We want to return 30 titanium tubes as soon as possible at the cheapest price," Nelson said.

The space agency said it is considering two options that would cost in the $6 billion to $7 billion range, including one that would feature innovative designs by commercial partners. The number of spacecraft and launches would remain the same, but NASA said the proposed options would streamline the mission.

[weatheriscool]

NASA eyes SpaceX, Blue Origin to cut Mars rock retrieval costs
https://phys.org/news/2025-01-nasa-eyes ... -mars.html

NASA announced Tuesday it may turn to Elon Musk's SpaceX or Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin to help reduce the soaring costs of returning Martian rocks collected by the Perseverance rover to Earth.

Originally planned to deliver 30 sample tubes to Earth by the 2030s, the Mars Sample Return mission has faced rising expenses and delays, prompting the US space agency to explore more streamlined solutions.

The pivot comes as China progresses towards a simpler "grab-and-go" sample return mission to the Red Planet "around 2028," according to state media, potentially making it the first nation to achieve the feat.

I think most space flight is going to be done by private in the future. Of course the government will fund and handle most of the science and general planning but it is what it is.

[weatheriscool]

Signatures of ice-free ancient ponds and lakes found on Mars
https://phys.org/news/2025-01-signature ... ponds.html
by California Institute of Technology

Researchers have discovered two sets of ancient wave ripples on Mars, signatures of long-dried bodies of water preserved in the rock record. Wave ripples are small undulations in the sandy shores of lakebeds, created as wind-driven water laps back and forth. The two sets of ripples indicate the former presence of shallow water that was open to the Martian air, not covered by ice as some climate models would require.

Ripples are one of the clearest indicators of an ancient standing body of water that can be provided by the geologic record. The team estimates that the ripples formed around 3.7 billion years ago, indicating that the Martian atmosphere and climate must have been warm and dense enough to support liquid water open to the air at the time.

The research is described in a paper appearing in the journal Science Advances. Caltech's John Grotzinger, Harold Brown Professor of Geology, and Michael Lamb, professor of geology, are principal investigators on the study.

"The shape of the ripples could only have been formed under water that was open to the atmosphere and acted upon by wind," says postdoctoral scholar Claire Mondro, the study's first author.

[weatheriscool]

Mars's two distinct hemispheres caused by mantle convection not giant impacts, study claims
https://phys.org/news/2025-01-mars-dist ... ction.html
by Hannah Bird , Phys.org

Mars has northern and southern hemispheres like Earth, but their defining characteristics are markedly different, a phenomenon known as Martian dichotomy. The Southern Highlands are older, higher in elevation and more cratered than the Northern Lowlands. The elevated terrain of the former acts as a natural barrier to airflow, resulting in varied wind patterns and contributing to localized weather phenomena.

Explanations for the origin of this dichotomy primarily surround giant impactors (~2,000 kilometers in diameter) from space and large-scale convective movements of the mantle caused by differences in its temperature and density.

Research published in Geophysical Research Letters has attempted to further unravel this origin story through study of Martian earthquakes, or marsquakes. Much like on Earth, this seismic activity can be used to explore driving mechanisms beneath Mars's surface.

[wjfox]

[weatheriscool]

[weatheriscool]

Trump Announces Mission to Send Astronauts to Mars
January 20, 2025 by Brian Wang

Trump said “We will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars by launching American astronauts to plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars”.

[wjfox]