Monthly Archives: May 2011

Home Plate: Worth a second visit?

Posted on May 19, 2011 by rburnham

In Gusev Crater’s Columbia Hills, explored by the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit, a low plateau about 100 yards wide dubbed Home Plate has turned out to be a Pretty Big Deal. Although a deep bed of soft sand on its … Continue reading →

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About that methane….

Posted on May 17, 2011 by rburnham

Methane is a greenhouse gas that on Earth most often has a biological origin, although it can also come from volcanic activity. Because of the biological implications – and because any Martian methane will be destroyed by oxygen in the … Continue reading →

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How to date a volcano

Posted on May 16, 2011 by rburnham

Without rock samples to analyze in a laboratory, how can you tell the age of a Martian volcano? A team led by Stuart Robbins (University of Colorado) used high-resolution images to count craters in the calderas (summit collapse pits) of … Continue reading →

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Big bangs

Posted on May 16, 2011 by rburnham

Really large meteorites produce impact scars big enough to be called basins. Although not defined by a particular size, basins differ from smaller craters in that the floor of a basin follows the planet’s curvature. New calculations published in the … Continue reading →

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Chips off the old block?

Posted on May 16, 2011 by rburnham

Are Martian moons Phobos and Deimos escaped asteroids, as sometimes proposed? Robert Craddock (National Air and Space Museum) suggests in a paper in the February 2011 issue of Icarus they may have come from a large impact on Mars instead. … Continue reading →

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Killing Earth bugs thoroughly

Posted on May 4, 2011 by rburnham

Mars seems earthlike in numerous ways, but it’s still a rugged environment for life. A team of scientists led by A. P. Johnson (Indiana University) examined just how rough Mars is for several terrestrial organisms and amino acids by subjecting … Continue reading →

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