Breaking News: Mars

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

Planetary geologist Mark Salvatore said this mission will provide the clearest look into Mars' interior structure, which will help scientists understand planetary formation and ways Earth and Mars differentiated over time.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers have discovered microbes living in a toxic volcanic lake that may rank as one of the harshest environments on Earth.

• share
• favorite_border

When lava flows down the slope of a volcano, it can leave behind an extreme environment ideal for unusual microbial life and potential clues to answering the life on Mars question. Kansas State University geology professor Saugata Datta is one of the primary investigators of a new NASA study that will use a robotic vehicle to explore and collect data inside caves at Lava Beds National Monument in Northern California.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers subject methanogens to simulated Mars conditions to determine if they could survive cold and low-pressure found in the subsurface.

• share
• favorite_border

Astronomy professor David Weintraub asks: Do we have any inalienable right to destroy the bio-ecosystem of an entire planet?

• share
• favorite_border

Dr. Chang-kwon Kang’s proposal on Marsbees was one of only 25 selected for NASA’s 2018 Innovative Advanced Concepts program, which funds early-stage technology that has the potential to revolutionize future space exploration.A proposal on Marsbees submitted by Dr. Chang-kwon Kang, an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), was one of only 25 selected to receive a 2018 NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) award.

• share
• favorite_border

Mars rovers and orbiters have found signs that Mars once hosted liquid water on its surface. Much of that water escaped over time. How much water was lost, and how does the water that’s left move from ice to atmosphere to soil? During its first year of operations, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope will seek answers. Webb also will study mysterious methane plumes that hint at possible geological or even biological activity.

• share
• favorite_border

UNLV research could help assess excavation sites for rover mission that hopes to secure evidence of past life on the red planet.

• share
• favorite_border

Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have conducted the first spectroscopic survey of the Earth-sized planets within the habitable zone around the nearby star TRAPPIST-1. Hubble reveals that at least three of the exoplanets (d, e, and f) do not seem to contain puffy, hydrogen-rich atmospheres similar to gaseous planets such as Neptune. The results, instead, favor more compact atmospheres like those of Earth, Venus, and Mars.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers from the Penn State Department of Aerospace Engineering are part of a team led by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) whose proposal for a revolutionary rotorcraft to investigate Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, has been selected by NASA as one of two finalists for the agency’s next New Frontiers mission.

• share
• favorite_border

Astronomy professor Mark Salvatore, who studies Mars via Antarctica, talks about how those winters compare to the winter storm that shut down the East Coast.

• share
• favorite_border

There’s no holiday on Mars. While many of us earthlings will spend the final days of 2017 taking a break from work and relaxing on couches or ski slopes, the ChemCam instrument aboard NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover will keep busy—all on its own.

• share
• favorite_border

The Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM) has been selected by NASA to lead a multi-institutional project to better understand the health risks related to radiation exposure from missions in deep space.

• share
• favorite_border

Rural counties continue to rank lowest among counties across the U.S., in terms of health outcomes. A group of national organizations including the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the National 4-H Council are leading the way to close the rural health gap.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

Scientists around Tetyana Milojevic from the Faculty of Chemistry at the University of Vienna are in search of unique biosignatures, which are left on synthetic extraterrestrial minerals by microbial activity. The biochemist and astrobiologist investigates these signatures at her own miniaturized "Mars farm" where she can observe interactions between the archaeon Metallosphaera sedula and Mars-like rocks. These microbes are capable of oxidizing and integrating metals into their metabolism. The original research was currently published in the journal "Frontiers in Microbiology".

• share
• favorite_border

A Kansas State University kinesiology research team has built a lifesize Orion spacecraft model to study astronaut fitness in spaceflight and during landing.

• share
• favorite_border

Late Tuesday, the ChemCam instrument that sits atop NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover fired its 500,000th shot at a Martian rock.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

The discovery of boron on Mars gives scientists more clues about whether life could have ever existed on the planet, according to a paper published today in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

• share
• favorite_border

While photographing Mars, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured a cameo appearance of the tiny moon Phobos on its trek around the Red Planet. Hubble took 13 separate exposures over 22 minutes to create a time-lapse video showing the moon's orbital path.

• share
• favorite_border

The cancer risk for a human mission to Mars has effectively doubled following a UNLV study predicting a dramatic increase in the disease for astronauts traveling to the red planet or on long-term missions outside the protection of Earth's magnetic field. New predictive model, published in Scientific Reports, shows radiation from cosmic rays extends from damaged to otherwise healthy 'bystander' cells.

• share
• favorite_border

A team of students from Missouri University of Science and Technology has won the University Rover Challenge, an international design competition where teams showcase potential next-generation Mars rovers.

• share
• favorite_border

A long-lasting lake on ancient Mars provided stable environmental conditions that differed significantly from one part of the lake to another, according to a comprehensive look at findings from the first three-and-a-half years of NASA’s Curiosity rover mission.

• share
• favorite_border

New findings based on NASA’s Curiosity rover mission reveal that an ancient lake in Gale Crater on Mars had chemical and physical properties very similar to those common to lakes on Earth.

• share
• favorite_border

Lighter-toned bedrock that surrounds fractures and comprises high concentrations of silica—called “halos”—has been found in Gale crater on Mars, indicating that the planet had liquid water much longer than previously believed.

• share
• favorite_border

Genetic research by a University of Arkansas at Little Rock student that could one day aid Mars colonists was one of only 10 student projects highlighted during a national NASA Space Grant conference.

• share
• favorite_border

Explorers planning to settle on Mars might be able to turn the planet’s red soil into bricks without needing to use an oven or additional ingredients. Instead, they would just need to apply pressure to compact the soil—the equivalent of a blow from a hammer. These are the findings of a study published in Nature Scientific Reports on April 27, 2017. The study was authored by a team of engineers at the University of California San Diego and funded by NASA.

• share
• favorite_border

Mars may have been a wetter place than previously thought, according to research on simulated Martian meteorites conducted, in part, at Berkeley Lab.

• share
• favorite_border

Two separate investigations determine that microorganisms can survive on the surface of Mars, and deep in its subsurface

• share
• favorite_border

Boron has been identified for the first time on the surface of Mars, indicating the potential for long-term habitable groundwater in the ancient past.

• share
• favorite_border

University of Utah researchers will be among the approximately 24,000 scientists convening in San Francisco for the annual Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union Dec. 12-16. Below are summaries of select presentations at the meeting, along with the time and date of the presentation and primary contact information. All times are in Pacific Standard Time.

• share
• favorite_border

The lack of liquid water on the surface of Mars today has been demonstrated by new evidence in the form of meteorites on the Red Planet examined by an international team of planetary scientists.

• share
• favorite_border

Researcher Don Hood from LSU and colleagues from collaborating universities studied an unusual region on Mars -- an area with high elevation called Thaumasia Planum. They analyzed the geography and mineralogy of this area they termed Greater Thaumasia, which is about the size of North America. They also studied the chemistry of this area based on Gamma Ray Spectrometer data collected by the Mars Odyssey Orbiter, which was launched in 2001. What they found was the mountain ridge that outlines Greater Thaumasia was most likely created by a chain of volcanoes. The results were published recently in the Journal of Geophysical Research-Planets.

• share
• favorite_border

How does space travel affect the spine? Astronauts on long missions in space have atrophy of the muscles supporting the spine—which don't return to normal even several weeks after their return to Earth, reports a study in Spine, published by Wolters Kluwer.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory have developed a rocket motor concept that could pave the way for CubeSats zooming across space. These small, low-cost satellites are an easy way for scientists to access space, but are lacking in one key area, on-board propulsion.