mars

What if the Red Planet weren't always in that constant state of blushing? Kevin Gill, a software engineer who also re-engineers planets every now and then, imagines Mars might long ago have looked quite a bit more like the aqua-green marble we call home.

To create the above image, Gill used data from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), picked an arbitrary sea level, and used a script to cover all the surfaces of Mars below that line with a nice shade of royal blue. From there, Gill writes on Google+ that it was a combination of some earthly … Read more

My brother has told me that if a manned Mars mission were seeking volunteers, he'd be the first in line, even if it meant never coming back. I wouldn't want him to go, but my desire to keep him Earth-bound is even more intense after checking out a new study on the impact of radiation on potential manned Mars missions.

A study published in PLOS One looks at the effects of galactic cosmic radiation on mice. Researchers exposed the mice to particle irradiation like that found in space. The result was cognitive impairment in line with the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease.… Read more

The Mars Curiosity rover recently detected signs of organic compounds on the Red Planet, but NASA won't call the findings definitive. One holdup is the issue of contamination. The trace amounts may be the result of contamination from the rover itself.

The contamination issue could rear its head again should the rover or future expeditions turn up any microbes. Finding microbes on Mars would be a cause for scientific celebration, but a study published in "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America" shows that Earth microbes could very well survive in the brutal conditions on Mars.… Read more

When astronaut Scott Kelly told his 9-year-old daughter he was going to spend a full year aboard the International Space Station, she exclaimed "awesome!"

When cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko told his wife the same thing, "she started crying."

But both men said Wednesday they were looking forward to blasting off in March 2015 and spending a full year in orbit, serving as medical guinea pigs to help scientists learn more about the long-term physical and psychological impacts of extended, confined flights in the weightless environment of space.

"I personally think our ultimate destination, at least for … Read more

In an ongoing effort to restructure its Mars exploration program in the wake of deep budget cuts announced earlier this year, NASA announced plans Tuesday to send a new $1.5 billion rover to the red planet in 2020 based on the design of the agency's hugely successful Curiosity.

The as-yet-unnamed rover is the second new Mars mission announced in the wake of the budget cuts that will be built using already-existing designs, a money-saving architecture agency officials say is more in line with current funding reality.

"The challenge to restructure the Mars Exploration Program has turned from … Read more

Despite widespread speculation about a potentially significant discovery on Mars, the Curiosity rover's first detailed look at a Martian soil sample with an instrument capable of detecting organic compounds hasn't found any "definitive" signs of materials that play key roles in biological processes on Earth, scientists said Monday.

While the rover's Sample Analysis at Mars, or SAM, instrument detected signs of an oxygen-chlorine compound -- perchlorate -- and trace amounts of chlorinated methane compounds, which contain carbon, researchers say more tests are needed to make sure the carbon originated with the sample and was not … Read more

What were you hoping for with the big juicy Mars discovery that a NASA researcher hinted at? Aliens? Kuato? Jimmy Hoffa?

As you'll no doubt recall, NASA investigator John Grotzinger was quoted as saying that data from the Curiosity rover suggested a discovery of epic significance. Well, here's your official oven-fresh serving of disappointment.

Today NASA confirmed there's no earth-shaking finding from the soil samples analyzed with Curiosity's on-board chemistry lab. … Read more

Let's review what we know about NASA's Martian secret heard round the solar system last week:

An NPR reporter happened to be recording in the office of the lead scientist for the Curiosity rover as some data from the rover's on-board chemistry lab was coming in. When pressed by the reporter to interpret the data, NASA's John Grotzinger declined, commenting simply that the "data is going to be one for the history books."… Read more

It seems NASA and the Curiosity rover have found something exciting and nerd-tastic on Mars, but the space agency's scientists are holding back for now, despite how painful it appears to be for them.

NPR science correspondent Joe Palca happened to be in the room recently when John Grotzinger, lead scientist for the Curiosity mission at NASA, started receiving data on his computer from the rover's on-board chemistry lab, also known as SAM (sample analysis at Mars). SAM and NASA scientists on Earth have been busy analyzing a sample of Martian soil of late, and apparently the dirt from the Red Planet has a secret to tell.

"This data is going to be one for the history books, it's looking really good," Grotzinger said in the story that aired yesterday.

And that's about all he said.… Read more