Mars is the darling of many planetary scientists, who continue to visit it through increasingly advanced robotic explorers. But don't forget that our planetary neighbor is adorned with two moons: puny Phobos , a lumpy mass 17 miles across; and diminutive Deimos , just 9 miles long. Their names in ancient Greek may mean "fear" and "dread', but the aesthetics of these Lilliputian space potatoes inspire anything but.
They don't look anywhere near as interesting as the volcanic or icy-ocean moons of Jupiter and Saturn, nor is their desolation as extreme or diverse as Earth's moon. But that hasn't stopped generations of planetary scientists from being eager to get a closer look at the ramshackle duo.
Quite a lot has been going on:
6 Things to Know About NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter – NASA's Mars Exploration Program
Ingenuity Mars Helicopter on the Martian Surface (Artist's Concept) : In this illustration, NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter stands on the Red Planet's surface as NASA's Perseverance rover (partially visible on the left) rolls away. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech. Full image and caption ›
The first helicopter attempting to fly on another planet is a marvel of engineering. Get up to speed with these key facts about its plans.
Giant waves of sand are moving on Mars | Science | AAAS
Researchers have spotted large waves of martian sand migrating for the first time. The discovery dispels the long-held belief that these "megaripples" haven't moved since they formed hundreds of thousands of years ago. They're also evidence of stronger-than-expected winds on the Red Planet.
It's pretty staggering that humans can detect these changes on Mars, says Ralph Lorenz, a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory who was not involved in the research. "We can now measure processes on the surface of another planet that are just a couple times faster than our hair grows."
UAE Mars mission: extraordinary feat shows how space exploration can benefit small nations | Space
This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Space.com's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) successfully launched its Mars mission dubbed " Al Amal ," or "Hope," from the Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan on July 20. This is the first space mission by the UAE, and the first Arab mission to Mars – making the world’s first launch countdown in Arabic a moment for the history books.
This may worth something:
How Mars and the moon could become your next neighborhood
Mars and the moon could be the next out-of-this-world neighborhoods for Americans someday, possibly in the next 10 years.
A formal request for ideas went out Friday for what officials call a fission surface power system, The Associated Press reported . Energy officials and scientists from NASA and the Idaho National Laboratory, which conducts nuclear research, will evaluate the ideas and settle on a company to work with.
The government is breaking the project into two phases: developing a reactor design and then building two prototypes — one for testing and one to ship to the moon. The building phase also calls for designing a flight system and lander to transport the reactor.
Join Space.com in our 'Summer of Mars' webinar July 29 | Space
I'll moderate our discussion, which will begin at 12 p.m. EDT (1600 GMT) and last up to an hour. We'll start with NASA's Mars 2020 rover Perseverance , which is poised to launch July 30, and discuss the United Arab Emirates' Hope orbiter and China's ambitious Tianwen-1 , a rover-lander-orbiter combo, both of which launched this week. And there's more missions headed to Mars, like the European-Russian ExoMars mission and Japan's Martian Moons eXploration project.
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Mars is the latest arena in US-China rivalry - CNN Video
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