A Mars orbiter run by the European Space Agency (ESA) has sniffed out two never-before-seen chemical signatures in the Red Planet's atmosphere. This discovery could solve a longstanding Martian methane mystery.
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"These features are both puzzling and surprising," Kevin Olsen, a planetary scientist at the University of Oxford and a researcher on the project, said in an ESA statement . "They lie over the exact wavelength range where we expected to see the strongest signs of methane."
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Scientists Detect Giant 'Megaripple' Structures Moving Across Mars
For the first time, scientists have observed that 'megaripples' on Mars – huge sand waves seen on the Martian surface – are moving structures, and not ancient relics stuck in place since the Red Planet's distant past.
The heftiness of the crest grains – combined with the very thin and faint winds of Mars' light atmosphere today – had scientists thinking these sediment structures must be static and immovable formations. Not so, new research shows.
A study led by planetary scientist Simone Silvestro from the INAF Capodimonte Astronomical Observatory in Italy reveals Martian megaripples are a flowing phenomenon after all – although you have to watch very, very closely to catch them in the act.
China's Mars probe photographs Earth en route to Red Planet
China joined the United States and United Arab Emirates this month in launching a mission to Mars, taking advantage of a period when Mars and Earth are favourably aligned.
The mission, given a name that means "Questions to Heaven," aims to enter Martian orbit seven months after the launch and release a small rover to study the planet's surface.
It's the latest milestone in Beijing's space programme, which has sent two rovers to the Moon and set up a satellite navigation, Beidou, to rival the United States' GPS.
Rock from Mars heads home after 600,000 year odyssey across space | Science | The Guardian
A small piece of rock will be hurled into space this week on one of the strangest interplanetary voyages ever attempted. A tiny piece of Martian basalt the size of a 10p coin will be launched on board a US robot probe on Thursday and propelled towards the red planet on a seven-month journey to its home world.
Scientists were confident that the rock they were returning to Mars originated on the planet, added Smith, who is also a member of the Mars 2020 science team. "Tiny bubbles of gas trapped inside that meteorite have exactly the same composition as the atmosphere of Mars, so we know our rock came from there."
Not to change the topic here:
A month of Mars
Coronavirus (COVID-19) update: Majority of courses will be online through fall semester. More information
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Mars, the reddish planet you can often see just by looking up into the night sky, is in relatively close proximity to Earth's orbit in the next month or so — a flyby that happens every couple of years.
Those close passes are optimal times for Earthlings to launch things at Mars and three space agencies plan to do so in the next month, including NASA and the first such attempts by the United Arab Emirates and China.
A Month of Milestones for Mars Missions - Eos
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) hopes to kick off a new decade of Mars exploration as it launches the Emirates Mars Mission and its orbiter, Hope. Hope, or Al Amal, is the first space exploration mission from an Arab state. It will be joined in its journey to Mars by China's Tianwen-1 and the United States' Mars 2020 mission later in July.
The Emirates Mars Mission contributes to the UAE's goal of shifting toward a knowledge-based economy and away from a dependency on petroleum. Although the mission has U.S.-based collaborators, Hope was built by a team consisting solely of Emirati scientists, with an average age of 32 years.
Meet the 3 Spacecraft Heading to Mars This Summer - The New York Times
This summer, three missions are setting out on a journey of millions of miles. Bound for Mars, the trio carry an array of state-of-the-art instruments to explore the red planet.
Hope was the first spacecraft to launch to Mars this summer, and the first Mars mission for the United Arab Emirates .
The orbiter will observe Mars from space, forming a detailed picture of the planet's atmosphere and its weather with a suite of imaging devices. A camera will capture high-resolution images of the planet. An infrared spectrometer will study dust, ice clouds, water vapor and temperature in the lower atmosphere. And an ultraviolet spectrometer will investigate carbon monoxide, hydrogen and oxygen in the upper atmosphere.
Indian teenagers discover asteroid near Mars moving toward Earth
Two teenage schoolgirls in India discovered an asteroid near Mars, a space education institute in India reported recently.
The two girls, Vaidehi Vekariya and Radhika Lakhani, both 14 and in 10th grade, were participants in a project sponsored by Space India and NASA. The project allows students to look at images from a telescope in Hawaii.
Vaidehi and Radhika used specialized software to analyze the images snapped by the Pan-STARRS telescope in Hawaii, and made the discovery in June, Space India told Reuters .
Happening on Twitter
China is about to try to launch an orbiter, lander and rover to Mars. The mission, Tianwen-1, is expected to lift o… https://t.co/7r6hj15UXf nytimes (from New York City) Wed Jul 22 16:42:01 +0000 2020
We're about four hours away from a hugely consequential launch for China's space program: An attempt to send an orb… https://t.co/bnuHITUbXo SciGuySpace (from Houston, TX) Thu Jul 23 00:16:58 +0000 2020
Today in 1976: Viking 1 orbiter took this image of mesa-like landforms, one resembling a human face. More about unm… https://t.co/jpLHflidsV airandspace (from Smithsonian, Washington DC) Sat Jul 25 20:30:02 +0000 2020
The @ESA_ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter @ESA_TGO has spotted new gas signatures at Mars. These will enable a more accura… https://t.co/NwdGwEEuTs esa (from Europe) Mon Jul 27 10:02:49 +0000 2020
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