This week, a mechanical geologist the size of a golf cart and nearly 156 million miles away galvanized the world with news that Mars bears unequivocal evidence of once-watery conditions capable of supporting life as we know it. Yet for all the excitement surrounding the discovery, the value of the Mars exploration program may lie as much in what it suggests about the early history of Earth and about the prospects for habitable planets around other stars as it does about Mars.
March 3rd, 2004
The Chemistry of Mars
One of the foundations supporting NASA’s case for water’s past presence on Mars, at least near the rover Opportunity, is salty chemical forms of sulfur known as sulfates. These mineral salts were found in abundance during Opportunity’s studies of a rock outcrop sitting in its Meridiani Planum landing site.
March 1st, 2004
Mars Theory Not Just Hot Air Wired
Astronomers have detected hydrogen peroxide, or H2O2, in the atmosphere of Mars, proving a 30-year-old theory about the planet’s atmospheric chemistry. It’s the first time a chemical catalyst of this sort has been found in a planetary atmosphere other than the Earth’s, said Douglas Pierce-Price at the Joint Astronomy Centre in Hawaii, where the observation was made.
February 26th, 2004
Mars Sunset Clip from Opportunity Tells Dusty Tale
Dust gradually obscures the Sun during a blue-sky martian sunset seen in a sequence of newly processed frames from NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity. “It’s inspirational and beautiful, but there’s good science in there, too,” said Dr. Jim Bell of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., lead scientist for the panoramic cameras on Opportunity and its twin, Spirit. The amount of dust indicated by Opportunity’s observations of the Sun is about twice as much as NASA’s Mars Pathfinder lander saw in 1997 from another site on Mars.
February 22nd, 2004
‘Mars red’ is open to interpretation The Seattle Times
Depending on how you see it, Mars is the Red Planet or the Pink Planet
February 20th, 2004
Rover’s images suggest traces of Mars water The Palm Beach Post
The first look beneath the Martian surface has shown that the soil composition changes dramatically with depth and hints that trace amounts of water have been present recently or might even be there now, researchers said Thursday. The Opportunity rover has spent the past three days examining a 4-inch-deep, 20-inch-long trench it created with its front wheel in Meridiani Planum.
February 20th, 2004
Scientists excited by mud of Mars The Charlotte Observer
The first look beneath the martian surface has shown that the soil composition changes dramatically with depth and hints that trace amounts of water have been present recently or may even be there now, researchers said Thursday. The Opportunity rover has spent the last three days examining a 4-inch-deep, 20-inch-long trench it created with its front wheel in Meridiani Planum.
February 16th, 2004
Born Bone Dry Astrobiology Magazine
Mars has polar ice caps, and pockets of liquid water are suspected to exist beneath the martian surface. Yet compared to Earth, Mars is a very dry place. Why is Mars so arid? The answer may lie in the random nature of planetary birth.
February 13th, 2004
New Insight into Martian Winds
Temperatures at the surface of Mars appear to vary more frequently and more dramatically than is typical on Earth, preliminary data from NASA’s Opportunity rover shows. While the minute-by-minute shifts were not unexpected, observing them for the first time suggests scientists will soon gain a better understand of how the red planet’s atmosphere behaves, which could improve the safety of future landing efforts.
February 11th, 2004
Water theory evaporates, but Mars mystery deepens The Sydney Morning Herald
The first close-up pictures of the outcrop of rock discovered by NASA’s Opportunity rover on Mars rule out the possibility that the layered rock was created by volcanic lava flows. The finding makes it much less likely that there was once a large body of water at the Meridiani Planum site. But the photographs revealed a new mystery – small grains of an apparently different material embedded in the layers of stone.