Tag Archives: European Space Agency

HRSC: From canals to craters

Mars was once believed to be criss-crossed by a system of irrigation canals – dark troughs that sliced across the planet’s surface, excavated by an intelligent society of thirsty martians. The astronomer who promoted this idea lends his name to … 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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Could detoxing Mars soil lead to new medicines?

Bacterial resistance to antibiotics is one of humankind’s major long-term health challenges. Now research into helping humans live on Mars could help address this looming problem. Dennis Claessen, associate professor at the Institute of Biology in Leiden University, the Netherlands … Continue reading

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Mars Express saw same methane spike detected by Curiosity

A reanalysis of data collected by ESA’s Mars Express during the first 20 months of NASA’s Curiosity mission found one case of correlated methane detection, the first time an in-situ measurement has been independently confirmed from orbit. Reports of methane … Continue reading

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Mars Express: Dark dust devil tracks

The winds of Mars are responsible for myriad features across the planet’s surface – including the dark dunes and wispy, filament-like streaks seen in this image from ESA’s Mars Express. The intriguing features shown here are ‘dust devil’ tracks: as … 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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