Mars Archives - Page 3 of 5

InSight Finds Evidence for Molten Silicate Layer above Martian Metallic Core

By News Staff October 25, 2023

Mars’ liquid iron alloy core is surrounded by a layer of fully molten silicate (magma) about 150 km thick, according to a pair of papers published in the journal Nature.…

Ancient Mars was Planet of Rivers, Planetary Scientists Say

By News Staff October 25, 2023

Ancient river deposits exist across Mars and can be identified in satellite data by erosional landforms called fluvial ridges. Fluvial ridges take the shape of ancient river deposits, and are…

InSight’s Largest Marsquake Was Likely Caused by Geological Processes, Study Says

By News Staff October 18, 2023

During its time on Mars, NASA’s InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) lander recorded over 1,300 seismic events, known as marsquakes. Of these, a number were…

ESA’s Mars Express Focuses on Surroundings of Olympus Mons Volcano

By News Staff August 24, 2023

Lava flows on Olympus Mons probably melted ice in the ground, making the volcano flank unstable; rockfalls and landslides moved hundreds of km into the surrounding landscape, forming a characteristic…

Early Mars Had a Sustained, Cyclic, Possibly Seasonal, Climate

By News Staff August 10, 2023

New observations of mud cracks made by NASA’s Curiosity rover show that high-frequency, wet-dry cycling occurred in early Martian surface environments, indicating that the Red Planet may have once seen…

Mars is Spinning Faster, Planetary Researchers Say

By News Staff August 9, 2023

To track the Red Planet’s spin rate, planetary scientists relied on the Rotation and Interior Structure Experiment (RISE) onboard NASA’s InSight lander. They found the planet’s rotation is accelerating by…

Auroral Mechanisms May Be Universal throughout Our Solar System

By News Staff July 18, 2023

An analysis of data obtained during the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo spacecraft’s first Mercury flyby reveals that Mercury’s southern magnetosphere aurorae are similar to those seen on Earth and Mars. An artist’s…

Perseverance Finds Diverse Organic Molecules in Jezero Crater

By News Staff July 12, 2023

The Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals (SHERLOC) instrument onboard NASA’s Perseverance rover has detected several species of aromatic organic molecules in the Máaz and…

Martian Gullies Could Have Been Formed by On-And-Off Periods of Liquid Meltwater

By News Staff July 4, 2023

Some steep slopes on Mars have gullies with morphologies suggesting that they were formed by a liquid. However, the planet’s current climate is not conducive to the melting of water…

MAVEN Observes Mars in Ultraviolet Light

By News Staff June 22, 2023

Planetary scientists using the Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph (IUVS) instrument onboard NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft have captured two amazing images of the Red Planet. By viewing the…