Mars may be going through a period of climate change, new findings from NASA
December 8th, 2003
Mars Surprisingly Magnetic in New Map Discovery News
Unprecedented mapping of the magnetism of Mars’ surface is revealing surprises and new mysteries about the Red Planet. The first surprise is that Mars’ crust is in some places ten times more magnetized than Earth’s crust. That’s despite the fact that Mars’ has virtually no global magnetic field today, said space scientist Jack Connerney of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
November 24th, 2003
Mars’s die-hard fan Astronomy.com
In an unnamed crater in Mars’s southern hemisphere, orbiting spacecraft have uncovered a fan-shaped geological formation with twisting and overlapping features that a pair of researchers call characteristics of a “textbook” drainage basin with sedimentary deposits. The find suggests water did not just flow across the martian surface during brief floods but that rivers and lakes once had a sustained presence on the Red Planet.
November 14th, 2003
Mars Images Suggest Persistent Rivers Past
In a long-running debate over whether Mars ever had long-lasting rivers, the latest images supporting the “yes” side have been put forth. Pictures from NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor orbiter show eroded ancient deposits of transported sediment long since hardened into interweaving, curved ridges of layered rock. Scientists interpret some of the curves as traces of ancient “meanders” made in a sedimentary fan as flowing water changed its course over time.
November 10th, 2003
Sand Dunes on Mars Reach Dizzying Heights
Ripples of sand sculpted by wind on the Martian surface soar higher than their terrestrial counterparts in relation to the distance between each one, a new study shows. While several conditions might contribute to the difference, observations of Mars are not yet fine enough to tell exactly what’s going on.
November 3rd, 2003
Sand ripples taller on Mars EurekaAlert!
Mars is kind of like Texas: things are just bigger there. In addition to the biggest canyon and biggest volcano in the solar system, Mars has now been found to have sand ripples twice as tall as they would be on Earth. Initial measurements of some of the Red Planet’s dunes and ripples using stereo-images from the Mars Orbiter Camera onboard the Mars Global Surveyor have revealed ripple features reaching almost 20 feet high and dunes towering at 300 feet.
October 10th, 2003
Professor Looks to Corn Syrup for Insight Into Planets The Daily Californian
UC Berkeley Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences Michael Manga wanted to learn about the evolution of planets, so he built a couple of his own
September 24th, 2003
Mars gets a bit windy at times The Arizona Republic
The other day I happened to read something about Mars that mentioned the high wind there. If there is no air in space, how can there be wind on Mars? There is lots of air on Mars. It just isn’t air we can breathe. The atmosphere of Mars is 96 percent carbon dioxide, about 3 percent nitrogen and 1 percent other stuff, including water vapor and a little bit of oxygen. And it is a very thin atmosphere. The average air pressure there is only about 1 percent of Earth’s.
September 12th, 2003
Surprising Impacts on Mars and Europa Astronomy.com
In the high-tech world of modern science, where sophisticated computers tear through complicated calculations, the value of arithmetic might seem negligible. Yet simply being able to count proves to be one of the most powerful weapons in a planetary scientist’s arsenal.
September 11th, 2003
NASA in seventh heaven over Svalbard Aftenposten
Norway’s Arctic archipelago Svalbard has won rave reviews from Mars researchers linked to the US National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA). A team has just spent the summer working on Svalbard, and dubbed it “perfect.” That’s because they believe Svalbard offers conditions that likely existed on Mars when both that planet and earth came into being around 4 billion years ago.