European Space Agency scientists think that there was and could even still be life on Mars and want a new European mission to the red planet to take samples, a conference heard on Friday. “Mars is the most Earth-like planet in our solar system,” said Agustin Chicarro, ESA Mars Express Project Scientist at the end of a one-week conference during which scientists from around the world discussed ESA’s Mars mission findings so far.
February 28th, 2005
Glacial, volcanic and fluvial activity on Mars
Images taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board ESA
February 21st, 2005
‘Pack ice’ suggests frozen sea on Mars New Scientist
A frozen sea, surviving as blocks of pack ice, may lie just beneath the surface of Mars, suggest observations from Europe’s Mars Express spacecraft. The sea is just 5
February 16th, 2005
Science from Mars Express after one year in orbit
After reaching its observational orbit around Mars a year ago, ESA
February 9th, 2005
Mars Express goes for boom or bust Nature
The radar stowed on board the European Space Agency’s Mars Express orbiter will finally be unfolded in early May. The Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding (MARSIS) will look for traces of water ice beneath the martian surface, and could potentially detect reservoirs up to five kilometres underground.
February 8th, 2005
Green light for deployment of ESA’s Mars Express radar
The European Space Agency has given the green light for the MARSIS radar on board its Mars Express spacecraft to be deployed during the first week of May. Assuming that this operation is successful, the radar will finally start the search for subsurface water reservoirs and studies of the Martian ionosphere. ESA’s decision to deploy MARSIS follows eight months of intensive computer simulations and technical investigations on both sides of the Atlantic. These were to assess possible harmful boom configurations during deployment and to determine any effects on the spacecraft and its scientific instruments.
January 4th, 2005
Mars may be geologically active, new photos imply Guardian Unlimited
Mars, the red planet, may not after all be the dead planet. New research today by European scientists suggests that volcanoes on Mars last erupted only 2 million years ago and could erupt again.
And dramatic photographs by a high-resolution stereoscopic camera aboard the European spacecraft Mars Express, in the journal Nature, suggest that glacial ice could survive on the western scarp of Olympus Mons, the biggest volcano in the solar system. Last week, Nature’s US rival Science named the confirmation of water on Mars as the scientific breakthrough of 2004. But the revelation that Mars could be geologically “alive” is even more dramatic.
November 11th, 2004
Martian moon Phobos in detail
These images, taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board ESA
November 11th, 2004
Mars answers spur questions Rocky Mountain News
Five spacecraft are circling Mars and creeping across its ruddy surface, looking for traces of long-gone waters and signs that the cold, arid planet may once have been hospitable to life. The robotic martian invasion – three orbiters and two six-wheeled rovers – has already uncovered strong evidence that water once flowed on Mars and is now locked in subsurface ice. But big questions about water on Mars remain. When did it flow? How long did it last? How much was there? Where did it come from? Where did it go? Perhaps the most tantalizing question: Were there long-lived watery environments where microbial life could have gained a foothold?