Ancient microbial life on Mars could have destroyed the planet’s atmosphere through climate change, which ultimately led to its extinction, new research has suggested. The new theory comes from a climate modeling study that simulated hydrogen-consuming, methane-producing microbes living on Mars roughly 3.7 billion years ago. At the time, atmospheric conditions were similar to those … Read more
E.M. Hamill has a new space opera out, The Dalí Tamareia Missions book 3: Third Front. And there’s a giveaway. Dalí Tamareia has the terrorist Skadi in their sights – but bringing her in may cost them everything. Dalí’s role as an undercover operative is compromised, putting a target on their back and threatening the … Read more
A mysterious Martian mineral that has perplexed scientists since its discovery seven years ago may have been spat out during an unusual volcanic eruption, researchers have revealed. The mineral, which is normally only found on Earth, was likely formed on the Red Planet more than 3 billion years ago. NASA’s Curiosity rover discovered the mineral … Read more
It’s springtime on Mars and the mysterious polygons are in bloom, a new image from the orbiting High Resolution Imaging Experiment (HIRISE) camera shows. Recorded on March 30, 2022, the image reveals a patchwork of white zig-zags cracking across the Martian soil at high latitudes, with occasional sprays of black and blue mist fanning out … Read more
Roaming Mars is a lonely existence for NASA’s Perseverance, but the exploratory rover now has a traveling companion: a hitchhiking “pet rock” that got stuck in one of its wheels. Luckily, the Martian stone won’t impact the rover’s science mission and is only a minor inconvenience — like having a pebble stuck in your shoe. … Read more
NASA’s marsquake-hunting lander has detected its two largest seismic events to date — and on the far side of the planet, no less. NASA’s InSight lander touched down on Mars in November 2018 carrying the most sensitive seismometer ever designed. Since the mission’s arrival, it has detected countless events dubbed marsquakes, using the signals to … Read more
NASA has released a stunning image of a unique crater on Mars with strange, luminous ridges that give it the appearance of a human fingerprint. The crater in the photo is known as Airy-0, a 0.3-mile-wide (0.5 kilometer) depression that sits within the much larger Airy crater, which is around 27 miles (43.5 km) wide. … Read more
No, this is NOT a doorway for Martians. Although the internet erupted on Thursday after a photograph from NASA’s Curiosity rover appeared to show an “alien door,” experts are pretty sure it’s just a natural feature of the Martian landscape. “This is a very curious image,” British geologist Neil Hodgkins, who has studied the geology … Read more
Observations by a long-running Mars mission suggest that liquid water may have flowed on the Red Planet as little as 2 billion years ago, much later than scientists once thought. Scientists charted the presence of chloride salt deposits left behind by flowing water using years of data from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), which has … Read more
Welcome to the latest installment of “Writer Fuel – cool real-world stories that might inspire your little writer heart. Check out our Writer Fuel page on the LimFic blog for more inspiration. Today: NASA is tracking two explorers on a 2,268-mile (3,650 kilometers) journey across Antarctica to learn more about humanity’s ability to survive on … Read more
