Tag Archives: Mars Express

HRSC: Phobos and Jupiter align

Posted on May 13, 2014 by rburnham

Even though it may only be a lump of porous rock, Phobos isn’t shy about hogging the limelight in this sequence taken by ESA’s Mars Express. These three images show Phobos, the larger of the two martian moons, darting across … Continue reading →

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HRSC: Beauty from chaos

Posted on April 10, 2014 by rburnham

Beautiful streamlined islands and narrow gorges were carved by fast-flowing water pounding through a small, plateau region near the southeastern margin of the vast Valles Marineris canyon system. Images captured on 7 December 2013 by ESA’s Mars Express show the … Continue reading →

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Radar measures thickness of Meridiani Planum sedimentary units

Posted on March 21, 2014 by rburnham

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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HRSC: Daedalia Planum closeup

Posted on March 6, 2014 by rburnham

Close-up view of the two dominant lava flows that reach the foot of the highland terrain (seen at the top of the image in this orientation). The older of the two eruptions produced the smooth lava surface to the south … Continue reading →

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HRSC image: Flood after the impact

Posted on February 11, 2014 by rburnham

Large and small, hundreds of thousands of craters scar the surface of Mars, hollowed out by a multitude of asteroids and comets that impacted the Red Planet throughout its history. This image shows a region of the planet’s northern hemisphere … Continue reading →

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Mars Express: 10 years at Mars

Posted on January 22, 2014 by rburnham

Ten years ago, on 14 January 2004, Mars Express took its very first images of Mars in colour and in 3D. To mark the occasion, the team produced a fly-through movie of the ancient flood plain Kasei Valles. The movie … Continue reading →

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Grooving on Phobos

Posted on February 5, 2013 by rburnham

Phobos, the larger moon of Mars, has a surface covered in craters, dust, boulders – and a great many semi-parallel and intersecting grooves. One theory for the grooves’ origin, proposed in 2011, holds that they are impact scars from chains … Continue reading →

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UV light makes methane from meteorites

Posted on June 12, 2012 by rburnham

Methane gas, which can arise from both biological and geological sources, was detected in the Martian atmosphere by observations from Earth-based telescopes in 2003 and from the Mars Express orbiter (2004). As methane breaks down relatively quickly under Martian conditions, … Continue reading →

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Sea cliffs in Libya Montes?

Posted on April 24, 2012 by rburnham

New work suggests that three possible shorelines from ancient lakes or seas in Isidis Planitia lie in Libya Montes. These mountains form the southern rim of Isidis, a Noachian-age impact basin 1,225 kilometers (760 miles) in diameter. They lie along … Continue reading →

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Hidden valley at the north pole

Posted on March 28, 2012 by rburnham

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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