Tag Archives: MARSIS

Mars Express: From worry to water

In 2004, a year after Europe’s first mission to Mars was launched, the flight dynamics team at ESA’s operations centre encountered a serious problem. New computer models showed a worrying fate for the Mars Express spacecraft if mission controllers continued … Continue reading

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Mars Express radar finds liquid water under Mars south polar region

Editor’s note: NASA has commented on this discovery. Radar data collected by ESA’s Mars Express point to a pond of liquid water buried under layers of ice and dust in the south polar region of Mars. [The researchers’ paper reporting … Continue reading

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Radar shows Mars atmosphere behaves as a single system

New research using a decade of data from ESA’s Mars Express has found clear signs of the complex martian atmosphere acting as a single, interconnected system, with processes occurring at low and mid levels significantly affecting those seen higher up. … Continue reading

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Mars Express: Radar echoes from Meridiani Planum

Searching for signs of ice on Mars is complex. To explore whether ice lurks beneath the surface of the Red Planet, ESA’s Mars Express uses its radar to probe the interior. It sends low-frequency radio pulses at Mars and records … Continue reading

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Radar shows thick, porous sediments & no ground ice under Meridiani Planum

New findings reveal deposits on Mars that could be interpreted to be ice-rich may contain little or no ice at all, based on an analysis of radar sounder data for Meridiani Planum — an area on the planet’s equator being … Continue reading

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Mars ionosphere shaped by crustal magnetic fields

Scattered pockets of magnetism across the surface of Mars have a significant influence on the planet’s upper atmosphere, according to observations from ESA’s Mars Express. Understanding these effects may be crucial for ensuring safe radio communications between Mars and Earth … Continue reading

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Comet Siding Spring’s effects on Mars atmosphere

Two NASA and one European spacecraft that obtained the first up-close observations of a comet flyby of Mars on Oct. 19, have gathered new information about the basic properties of the comet’s nucleus and directly detected the effects on the … Continue reading

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NASA telecon to discuss Mars comet findings

NASA will host a media teleconference at 9 a.m. PST (noon EST) on Friday, Nov. 7, to provide initial science observations of comet C/2013 A1 Siding Spring’s close flyby of Mars and the impact on the Martian atmosphere. Briefing participants … Continue reading

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Radar measures thickness of Meridiani Planum sedimentary units

Landed upon and explored by the Opportunity rover, the rocks of Meridiani Planum have been intensively studied, both from orbit and from ground level. Now scientists in a team led by Thomas Watters (Smithsonian Institution) have used the MARSIS ground-penetrating … Continue reading

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Hidden valley at the north pole

The north polar cap of Mars has a wide, deep trough called Chasma Boreale that slices into the polar cap for 560 kilometers (350 miles). The floor of the chasma exposes a layer of sand and dust cemented with water … Continue reading

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