The soil on Mars could be identical almost everywhere showing that, like on the Moon, its composition is unrelated to the immediately underlying rocks. Study by the US rovers which touched down in January would suggest the soil has been mixed up by wind and impacts.
March 17th, 2004
“Vast” reserves of frozen water on Mars pole: study
Mars holds huge reserves of frozen water in its southern pole, according to the first detailed assessment of the data sent back by Europe’s Mars Express spacecraft earlier this year.
March 14th, 2004
Scholars find evidence of possible faults on Mars Japan Today
A group of scholars has found a surface of discontinuity on the planet Mars which is believed to be faults, Shigenori Maruyama, a professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, said Saturday.
March 12th, 2004
USSR module was first to report on Martian atmosphere 30 years ago Itar-Tass
The earliest data about the Martian atmosphere was transmitted to the Earth from the landing module of the Soviet inter-planetary station
March 10th, 2004
Winner of Nevada Reno Gazette-Journal
Research on Mars is helping scientists better understand the life cycles of deserts on Earth and the potential to tap aquifers deep beneath the ground, an expert said Wednesday.
March 10th, 2004
Mars: Goldilocks’ Oasis? Astrobiology Magazine
Locally, Earth has its habitable extremes: Antarctica, the Sahara desert, the Dead Sea, Mount Etna. Globally, our blue planet is positioned in the solar system’s habitable zone, or ‘Goldilocks’ region where the temperature and pressure are just right to support liquid water and life. Across the borders from this goldilocks zone orbit our two neighbors: the runaway greenhouse planet, Venus–which in goldilocks’ terms is ‘too hot’–and the frigid red planet, Mars, which is ‘too cold’.
March 8th, 2004
Editorial: Mars/Once it was the Wet Planet, too Star Tribune
It has been only a century or so since astronomers noted the first suggestions of water on Mars — the trench-like surface features still known, somewhat fancifully, as canals. Since then the clues have come in a trickle: Satellite photos of rock that might have been carved by currents, discovery of a polar ice cap, readings from chemical probes that might or might not point to ancient moisture.
March 7th, 2004
So, where did the water on Mars come from? Toronto Star
The Mars rover Opportunity’s examination of Martian rocks last week provided the first convincing evidence that our neighbour world was once “awash” in water, as one NASA scientist described it.
But where did the water come from? And why does Mars have no liquid water now, while Earth apparently has been covered with the stuff for 4 billion years?
March 6th, 2004
More signs of water found on Mars
A Mars rover has found further evidence that water once existed on the red planet, the US space agency Nasa says.
The fresh signs were discovered by the Nasa rover Spirit, after it bored a hole in volcanic rock.