Having found water in a 4.5 billion-year-old meteorite, NASA scientists are searching for more that may have been overlooked in other space rocks. The water, locked in a purple crystalline mineral called halite – or rock salt – remained uncontaminated by the Earth’s atmosphere because scientists studied the meteorite quickly, less than 46 hours after it fell, said Everett Gibson, the NASA scientist who retrieved the space rock last year from the West Texas town of Monahans.
August 10th, 1999
NASA Finds Tree-Shaped Frost on Mars
Peering down through stormy Martian skies, a NASA spacecraft has found tree-like shapes dotting the red planet’s south pole. But what appears to be rolling hills covered with vegetation are most likely sand dunes topped with melting frost, scientists said Tuesday. The latest images from the $250 million Mars Global Surveyor that has been mapping the planet since March offer new insight into the weather there.
August 2nd, 1999
Britain wants to investigate Mars
Britain wants to send a space probe to Mars in 2003 to investigate whether there is life on the red planet, the government said Sunday.
April 29th, 1999
Mars once may have had Earthlike magnetic field and volcanism
The discovery of magnetic strips across the face of Mars suggests the barren planet once had geology like that of Earth, with a torrid interior spurting molten rock and massive plates drifting on the surface.
March 10th, 1999
Global Surveyor begins long-delayed mapping of Mars
The Mars Global Surveyor has finally begun mapping the red planet, turning an array of instruments on Earth’s dusty neighbor a year later than originally planned. “All our instruments are on now,” flight operations manager Joseph Beerer said Tuesday at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.
August 27th, 1998
Inflatable Mars ship may double as space station crew quarters
Astronauts aboard NASA’s future space station may find themselves eating, sleeping, exercising and unwinding inside a balloon, rather than a can.