Tag Archives: ExoMars

10 things you didn’t know about Mars

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Europe to Mars — and back!

Europe has been in orbit around Mars for more than 15 years and is almost a year away from launching its first rover mission, but ambitions are already running high to go one step further: returning a sample from the … Continue reading

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ExoMars rover PanCam filter set

This may look like a collection of colourful contact lenses and in some respects there are some similarities: these are the filters through which the ExoMars rover – Rosalind Franklin – will view Mars in visible and near infrared wavelengths. … Continue reading

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Hunting for biosignatures in volcanic rocks

[Editor’s note: From a paper by Magnus Ivarsson, Therese Sallstedt, and Diana-Thean Carlsson recently published in Frontiers in Earth Science.] Morphological Biosignatures in Volcanic Rocks – Applications for Life Detection on Mars The exploration of Mars is largely based on comparisons with … Continue reading

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Trace Gas Orbiter: First science results

New evidence of the impact of the recent planet-encompassing dust storm on water in the atmosphere, and a surprising lack of methane, are among the scientific highlights of the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter’s first year in orbit. Two papers [here … Continue reading

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Trace Gas Orbiter: Dust devil detail

Mars may have a reputation for being a desolate world, but it is certainly not dead: its albeit thin atmosphere is still capable of whipping up a storm and, as this image reveals, send hundreds – maybe even thousands – … Continue reading

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ExoMars: Mars calling

An exciting new competition is giving citizens of planet Earth the opportunity to get their voices to Mars in the next phase of the ExoMars programme. The ExoMars rover and platform will launch to the Red Planet in 2020. The … Continue reading

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ExoMars rover landing platform gets a name

The platform destined to land on the Red Planet as part of the next ExoMars mission has arrived in Europe for final assembly and testing – and been given a name. An announcement was made by the Russian State Space … Continue reading

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ExoMars: Images of InSight lander and more

Curious surface features, water-formed minerals, 3D stereo views, and even a sighting of the InSight lander showcase the impressive range of imaging capabilities of the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter. The ESA-Roscosmos Trace Gas Orbiter, or TGO, launched three years ago … Continue reading

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Defining the goals for collecting Mars samples

Returning samples from the surface of Mars has been a high-priority goal of the international Mars exploration community for many years. Although randomly collected samples would be potentially interesting, they would not be sufficient to answer the big questions that … Continue reading

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