Tag Archives: MEX

Mars Express: Korolev Crater

This image shows what appears to be a large patch of fresh, untrodden snow – a dream for any lover of the holiday season. However, it’s a little too distant for a last-minute winter getaway: this feature, known as Korolev … Continue reading

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European Space Agency: Supporting InSight

At just before 9pm Central European Time on 26 November, Mars will receive a new visitor: NASA’s InSight lander. (…) Since InSight’s study is focused on sensing the planet’s interior, surface geology is not such an important factor in deciding … Continue reading

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Mars Express: Shaping the surface with water, wind, and ice

ESA’s Mars Express has imaged an intriguing part of the Red Planet’s surface: a rocky, fragmented, furrowed escarpment lying at the boundary of the northern and southern hemisphere. This region is an impressive example of past activity on the planet … Continue reading

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Mars Express: Greeley Crater in Noachis Terra

The surface of Mars may appear to be perpetually still, but its many features are ever-changing – as represented in this Mars Express view of the severely eroded Greeley impact crater. Greeley crater, named for the renowned planetary scientist Ronald … Continue reading

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Mars Express: Keeping an eye on a curious cloud

Since 13 September, ESA’s Mars Express has been observing the evolution of an elongated cloud formation hovering in the vicinity of the 20 km-high Arsia Mons volcano, close to the planet’s equator. In spite of its location, this atmospheric feature … Continue reading

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Mars Express: Recent tectonics on Mars

These prominent trenches were formed by faults that pulled the planet’s surface apart less than 10 million years ago. The images were taken by ESA’s Mars Express on 27 January, and capture part of the Cerberus Fossae system in the … Continue reading

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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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Mars Express: As the dust storm rolled in

The high resolution stereo camera on board ESA’s Mars Express captured this impressive upwelling front of dust clouds – visible in the right half of the frame – near the north polar ice cap of Mars in April this year. … 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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