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- Dry ice slabs carve linear grooves down Mars dunes
- Was nitrogen in the early Mars atmosphere a key to ancient habitability?
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- Aeolis Serpens, Mars’ longest sinuous ridge, is an ancient riverbed
- Most deltas on Mars created by short, catastrophic floods
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Monthly Archives: December 2011
Microbes in a cave, eating rock
Life abounds on Earth, where it lives in every possible ecological niche, including deep in the crust. This comes from biology’s reproductive drive plus natural selection’s creativity in matching organisms’ needs with what nature provides. But what about Mars, where … Continue reading
Posted in Reports
Tagged astrobiology, ice, lava tubes, life, Newberry volcano, olivine, Pseudomonas
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Polar gullies erode from carbon dioxide flows
Gullies on Martian slopes form by flowing water, most probably trickles of snowmelt or groundwater. But what about the gullies found in places such as the high latitudes and polar regions where temperatures never rise above the freezing point for … Continue reading
Posted in Reports
Tagged CO2 ice, dust, frost, gullies, polar regions, sediments, water
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Airblast avalanches
The aerial blast wave from a meteorite impact can trigger dust avalanches in the vicinity, says a new paper published in Icarus. A group of scientists led by Kaylan Burleigh (University of Arizona) reached this conclusion after studying a cluster … Continue reading
Posted in Reports
Tagged airblast, craters, dust, dust avalanches, HiRISE, impacts, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Medusae Fossae formation, meteorites, slope streaks
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Opportunity discovers water-precipitated gypsum at Cape York
The Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has found thumb-wide veins of gypsum in a rock layer at Cape York, the Endeavour Cater rim segment where it will spend the coming Martian winter. The discovery was announced at the fall meeting of … Continue reading
Posted in Reports
Tagged Crater Lake, Endeavour Crater, gypsum, Homestake, Mars Exploration Rovers, MER, Opportunity, Tisdale, Transvaal
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High ground on Cape York rim segment named Shoemaker Ridge
Scientists with the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity have given the name of Shoemaker Ridge to the highest “spine” of the Cape York segment of Endeavour Crater’s rim. The rover arrived at Cape York in early August and has been exploring … Continue reading
Posted in Reports
Tagged craters, Endeavour Crater, Mars Exploration Rovers, MER, Meridiani Planum, Opportunity, Shoemaker Ridge
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Shifting sands
Sand — in wind-blown ripples, drifts, and dunes — lies all over Mars. But it poses a puzzle because the current atmosphere is too thin (less than 1% of Earth’s) to move that much sand around. So researchers in the … Continue reading