Everything about Mars except colonisation and where there specific threads already co

[Roger E. Moore]

Two newsworthy looks at Mars discoveries recently.

Rumbles on Mars Raise Hopes of Underground Magma Flows. NASA’s InSight lander, which has been peeking inside Mars for two years now, has picked up on some curious seismic signals emanating from one such site of youthful volcanism. The results, which were presented at a conference in December, are not definitive. But they suggest that InSight could be hearing the sounds of convulsing magma — the drumbeat of volcanic warfare presumed to have fallen silent eons ago.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/mars-...lows-20210201/

===

Could the Surface of the Martian Moon Phobos Reveal Secrets of Mars’ Past? If soil from Phobos were analyzed in labs on Earth, it could reveal key information about the evolution of the Martian atmosphere, researchers say.

https://scitechdaily.com/could-the-s...-of-mars-past/

[selvaarchi]

"Ice Caves on Mars: Past Climate, Biosignature Preservation?"

https://www.leonarddavid.com/ice-cav...-preservation/

Exploration of caves on planet Mars could potentially help shed light back on the history of past climate conditions on the Red Planet, as well as offer evidence for past microbial life.

Martian caves are protected from radiation and environmental extremes making them excellent preservers of potential biosignatures.

New research has looked into the promise of “ice caves” on Mars, rock-hosted caves containing ice. Ice-hosted caves are called “glacier caves”, and may be present on Mars as well.

[selvaarchi]

"Where Should Future Astronauts Land on Mars? Follow the Water"

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/where-...llow-the-water

So you want to build a Mars base. Where to start? Like any human settlement, it would be best located near accessible water. Not only will water be crucial for life-support supplies, it will be used for everything from agriculture to producing the rocket propellant astronauts will need to return to Earth.

Schlepping all that water to Mars would be costly and risky. That’s why NASA has engaged scientists and engineers since 2015 to identify deposits of Martian water ice that could be within reach of astronauts on the planet’s surface. But, of course, water has huge scientific value, too: If present-day microbial life can be found on Mars, it would likely be nearby these water sources as well.

[selvaarchi]

"As new probes reach Mars, here's what we know so far from trips to the red planet"

https://www.marsdaily.com/reports/As...lanet_999.html

Three new spacecraft are due to arrive at Mars this month, ending their seven-month journey through space.

The first, the United Arab Emirates' Hope Probe, should have made it to the red planet this week. It will stay in orbit and study its atmosphere for one complete Martian year (687 Earth days).

China's Taiwen-1 mission also enters orbit this month and will begin scouting the potential landing site for its Mars rover, due to be deployed in May.

If successful, China will become the second country to land a rover on Mars.

These two missions will join six orbiting spacecraft actively studying the red planet from above:

[selvaarchi]

"Staying long-term on Mars"

https://www.marsdaily.com/reports/St..._Mars_999.html

The "red planet" in the evening sky seems more and more within reach, as leading space agencies aspire astronaut missions to Mars in the future. Unlike the 1969 moon landing, these missions are designed for a long-term stay, which poses new challenges for science: In addition to a habitat, for example, the few materials brought from Earth must be used efficiently and sustainably to equip and feed the astronauts.

Humboldt fellow Cyprien Verseux from the Center for Applied Space Technology and Microgravity (ZARM) at the University of Bremen has now published initial research results at frontiers that indicate that cyanobacteria can reproduce excellently under Martian conditions and thus form the basis for biological life support systems.

[selvaarchi]

"Buried Ice Deposits to Sustain Red Planet Expeditions"

https://www.leonarddavid.com/mars-bu...t-expeditions/

Water is the elixir of life. On Mars, utilizing subsurface frozen water ice can help prolong future human exploration of the Red Planet.

New research spotlights potential buried ice deposits to support the selection of human landing sites in the northern mid-latitudes of Mars.

The work is an output of the Subsurface Water Ice Mapping (SWIM) project of the Planetary Science Institute.

[Roger E. Moore]

Some microbes on Earth could temporarily survive on the surface of Mars, finds a new study by NASA and German Aerospace Center scientists.

https://phys.org/news/2021-02-life-e...vive-mars.html

[selvaarchi]

"Mars Fleet: Orbiters, Rovers at the Red Planet"

https://www.leonarddavid.com/mars-fl...he-red-planet/

Count ‘em: There’s now a fleet of Mars explorers busy at work in orbit and on the surface of the Red Planet, observes Scott Guzewich, an atmospheric scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Eleven — NASA’s Curiosity, Perseverance, InSight, Odyssey, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, MAVEN, Europe’s Mars Express, the Trace Gas Orbiter, India’s Mars Orbiter mission, China’s Tianwen-1, and the UAE’s Hope — spacecraft are now concurrently exploring Mars from the surface and orbit.

“That incredible fleet produces synergistic science discoveries that would not be possible with any one spacecraft in isolation,” Guzewich notes.

[Roger E. Moore]

The Sun sets over Jezero crater as seen by the Mars rover Perseverance on Sol 4, the fifth Martian day after it landed (landing day is Sol 0; Sol 4 was February 23, 2021).

https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/sunset-on-mars

[selvaarchi]

"Following Perseverance, NASA awards contract for Mars sample return"

https://www.floridatoday.com/story/t...rn/4593853001/

NASA has officially awarded a contract for the small launch system that will vault Mars rock samples to the planet's orbit before a return trip to Earth, an ambitious follow-up to the recent touchdown of the Perseverance rover.

The agency on Thursday awarded $60.2 million to Northrop Grumman to build the Mars Ascent Propulsion System, or MAPS, for a small vehicle that will eventually carry tubes of rock and soil samples collected by Perseverance during its science investigations in Jezero Crater. Most of the work will be done over the next 14 months at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

Current prototype designs show a four-legged lander on Mars with a small rover that retrieves sample tubes left behind by Perseverance, then loads them into the Mars Ascent Vehicle, or MAV, which is a small two-stage rocket. Northrop Grumman is just responsible for the rocket's solid propulsion system.

[Roger E. Moore]

Mars Express unlocks the secrets of a curious water-ice cloud coming from the Arsia Mons volcano.

https://www.marsdaily.com/reports/Ma...cloud_999.html

[Roger E. Moore]

Mars Express unlocks the secrets of a curious water-ice cloud coming from the Arsia Mons volcano.

https://www.marsdaily.com/reports/Ma...cloud_999.html

Here is the original paper, which came out today:

An Extremely Elongated Cloud over Arsia Mons Volcano on Mars: I. Life Cycle

J. Hernández-Bernal, A. Sánchez-Lavega, T. del Río-Gaztelurrutia, E. Ravanis, A. Cardesín-Moinelo, K. Connour, D. Tirsch, I. Ordóñez-Etxeberria, B. Gondet, S. Wood, D. Titov, N. M. Schneider, R. Hueso, R. Jaumann, E. Hauber

We report a previously unnoticed annually repeating phenomenon consisting of the daily formation of an extremely elongated cloud extending as far as 1800 km westward from Arsia Mons. It takes place in the Solar Longitude (Ls) range of ~220-320, around the Southern solstice. We study this Arsia Mons Elongated Cloud (AMEC) using images from different orbiters, including ESA Mars Express, NASA MAVEN, Viking 2, MRO, and ISRO Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM). We study the AMEC in detail in Martian Year (MY) 34 in terms of Local Time and Ls and find that it exhibits a very rapid daily cycle: the cloud growth starts before sunrise on the western slope of the volcano, followed by a westward expansion that lasts 2.5 hours with a velocity of around 170 m/s in the mesosphere (~45 km over the areoid). The cloud formation then ceases, it detaches from its formation point, and continues moving westward until it evaporates before the afternoon, when most sun-synchronous orbiters observe. Moreover we comparatively study observations from different years (i.e. MYs 29-34) in search of interannual variations and find that in MY33 the cloud exhibits lower activity, whilst in MY34 the beginning of its formation was delayed compared to other years, most likely due to the Global Dust Storm. This phenomenon takes place in a season known for the general lack of clouds on Mars. In this paper we focus on observations, and a theoretical interpretation will be the subject of a separate paper.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.03919

[Roger E. Moore]

Is there life on Mars today and where? One researcher thinks there might be, but it isn't where we think.

https://phys.org/news/2021-03-life-mars-today.html

[Roger E. Moore]

A pocket guide to Mars: Now you can buy an atlas for the Red Planet.

https://phys.org/news/2021-03-pocket...ed-planet.html

[Roger E. Moore]

We May Never Find Life on Mars—And That Could Be a Good Thing.

https://www.airspacemag.com/daily-pl...ing-180977236/

QUOTE: In a 2007 essay, Nick Bostrom, Director of Oxford University’s Future of Humanity Institute, wrote that while the discovery of life on Mars would be of tremendous scientific significance, it would be really bad news for the future of the human species.

[cannongray]

InSight tracks down the origin of two big marsquakes. The fact that four large quakes have now been traced to this region lends significant evidence to the idea that Cerberus Fossae remains seismically active. What’s more, all of these quakes offer a key window into Mars’ interior structure. That’s because all four marsquakes seem more Earth-like than Moon-like, meaning they traveled more directly from their point of origin through the deeper layers of the Red Planet to reach SEIS.