Mars is the fourth planet that orbits the Sun in our Solar System. Circling at an average distance of approximately 229 million kilometres (around 142 million miles) from the Sun, it sits between the orbits of Earth and Jupiter.
The planet is a terrestrial or 'rocky' body with complex geological characteristics and even signs that liquid water, if not glaciers , have at some point eroded its surface.
Despite many similarities between Earth and Mars, Mars has had a significantly different history to our own planet.
Not to change the topic here:
Martian Night Sky Pulses in Ultraviolet Light
Mars in Sight as Multiple Spacecraft Launches Announced
DUBLIN , Aug. 12, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- ResearchAndMarkets.com published a new article on the spece industry " Multiple Spacecraft Launch to Mars "
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Mars may not have been the warm, wet planet we thought it was | MIT Technology Review
But there's no complete consensus on what Mars really looked like in the past. "The argument over the climate of early Mars is an old one" going back 40 years, says Anna Grau Galofre of Arizona State University. She's the lead author of a new study published in Nature Geoscience that upends those dreams of a watery Mars, presenting new findings that suggest the planet's ancient landscape looked closer to Antarctica than the tropics.
The new study focuses on the history of valleys located in the southern highlands of Mars. "Past work has pointed at rivers as the origin of the Martian valley networks," says Grau Galofre, but her study identifies for the first time a fraction of systems with characteristics "typical of subglacial channels." That is, it was melting ice, not flowing water, that dug out these valleys nearly 3.8 billion years ago.
Quite a lot has been going on:
Your Guide to Mars | The Planetary Society
Learn why we explore the worlds of our solar system and beyond, and find out how you can get involved.
Humans have sent more spacecraft to Mars than any other world beyond Earth. Today, there are 8 missions operating on or around the planet, with 3 more due to arrive in 2021 to kick off the next generation of exploration.
The United States and Soviet Union began sending robotic probes to Mars in the 1960s. Many of those early attempts failed, until NASA's Mariner 4 spacecraft successfully flew by Mars in 1965, revealing a barren landscape. Later missions saw Earth-like deltas and canyons suggesting that liquid water had shaped the surface.
LANL: Podcast Explains How Plutonium Powers Mars Exploration – Los Alamos Reporter
To have dependable power to explore the the frigid surface of Mars, NASA's Perseverance rover is equipped with a type of power system called a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG)—which is what the latest episode of Mars Technica will tell listeners all about.
"An RTG is essentially a nuclear battery that uses heat from the natural radioactive decay of plutomium-238 to generate electricity," said Jackie Lopez-Barlow, the radioisotopes power system program manager at Los Alamos National Laboratory. "You can't always rely on solar power, particularly when you're far from the Sun or when dust storms might be a problem. RTGs provide long-lasting power that works no matter how far out in space you are."
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