Mars, latest news, photos, videos. A city found on Mars shocked the public and baffled researchers. What's really new on Mars?
Since the first expeditions successfully landed on the Red Planet at the end of the 20th century, we have gradually been able to unravel many of the mysteries of Mars. Thanks to technological progress, we are learning more and more about this fascinating planet.
Here are the most interesting facts about the red planet that are sure to teach you something new.
Mars has two very different hemispheres
One of the most interesting characteristics of Mars is the strong differences between the surfaces of the northern and southern hemispheres.
The northern hemisphere consists of low-lying plains that make the planet's topography appear young, while the southern hemisphere is riddled with craters, canyons, and appears rough and ancient.
In addition, the surface in the southern part is thicker than in the north. These differences still cause a lot of controversy among experts, and no one can explain the reason for such a difference in relief.
Snow on Mars will evaporate before it reaches the surface
If a person could stand on the equator of Mars, he would feel that the lower part of his body was in a hot climate and the upper part in a cold climate. While the feet are warm at a temperature of 21 degrees Celsius, the head is cool, because at this altitude the temperature is 0 degrees. No wonder snow doesn't stand a chance.
Mars appears reddish due to rusty dust in the atmosphere
The surface of Mars contains a lot of iron. These minerals oxidize or rust, forming dust that enters the atmosphere, giving the planet a reddish hue not only up close but also from afar.
Mars is a terrestrial planet
Just like Earth, Venus and Mercury are the inner planets of the solar system.
Mars has a rocky surface and an iron core. Unlike the outer planets such as Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune and Saturn, which are made of gases, the terrestrial planets have solid surfaces. They all have a similar structure - core, mantle and crust. However, the thickness of each layer varies from planet to planet.
The planet is dotted with deep craters
There are several large craters on the surface of the red planet, the largest of which is North Polar, which occupies about 40% of the surface of the entire planet. Scientists believe that the crater could have been formed as a result of a collision with a cosmic body the size of Pluto. This could have happened at an early stage in the formation of the Solar System.
The surface of Mars has very low pressure
If you decide to walk on Mars without a spacesuit, be prepared for the consequences. The atmospheric pressure on Mars is one hundred times lower than on Earth! This pressure causes almost any liquid consisting of at least half water to intensively boil and evaporate. The same fate awaits the blood of a person who enters the atmosphere of Mars without a spacesuit.
There is water on Mars
Exploration missions to Mars focus on finding evidence of life on the red planet. Much of the search is aimed at tracking the presence of liquid water, which makes life possible on Earth. Today it is known that there is water on Mars, although not quite in the form that is familiar to us. The Phoenix spacecraft has discovered a layer of ice hidden under a thin layer of soil in the polar region of Mars.
Mars may have had rivers and oceans in the past
Scientists believe that liquid water flowed on the surface of Mars a long time ago, and traces of it remained on the surface and in the soil.
In 2013, scientists reported that the Curiosity rover had done soil analysis that provided actual evidence of the presence of water on Mars in the past.
This important discovery supports the hypothesis that Mars was habitable in the past.
Valles Marineris is the longest and deepest canyon system in the Solar System.
This canyon system can easily put the Grand Canyon to shame. The length of the Marinera Canyon is 4 thousand kilometers, and the depth is four times greater than that of the Grand Canyon.
Mars has a very thin atmosphere
You won't be able to breathe Martian air because carbon dioxide makes up 95.3 percent of the entire Martian atmosphere, while oxygen makes up just 0.13 percent.
It never rains on Mars
The surface of Mars is either very hot or very cold, so liquid water cannot exist there. It turns into either ice or steam.
But it snows on Mars
True, it is not quite similar to our earthly one. This is another fun and surprising fact about Mars - the snowflakes there are made of carbon dioxide, not water. Snowflakes are so tiny that we would perceive them as fog.
Giant sandstorms are raging on Mars
One sandstorm can cover the entire planet in dust and last for months.
Want to weigh less? Let's go to Mars!
On the surface of Mars, you can jump three times higher than on Earth, unless you are wearing a heavy spacesuit, of course. The surface gravity of Mars is about 37% less than that of Earth.
No one knows for sure who discovered Mars
The discovery of Mars cannot be accurately attributed to one person or culture.
There are suggestions that the ancient Egyptians discovered it in 1570 BC. e. However, the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus is also often called the discoverer of Mars, since it was he who first observed it through a telescope.
There are also four seasons on Mars
Both Mars and Earth are tilted on their axis. Mars's axial tilt is almost exactly the same as Earth's, so Mars also has winter, spring, summer and autumn, although each of the red planet's seasons lasts twice as long.
A year on Mars is almost twice as long as on Earth
A solar day on the red planet lasts 24 hours, 39 minutes and 35 seconds, almost the same as on ours. A year on Mars, however, lasts almost twice as long - 687 days.
Mars has two moons
Mars has two satellites - Phobos and Deimos. Like our Moon, they are tidally locked and show only one side to Mars. These moons are very small in size and may be asteroids.
The tallest volcano on Mars is three times taller than Everest
The tallest volcano on Mars, named Olympus Mons, or Olympus Mons, is the tallest mountain in the entire solar system. It rises 25 kilometers above the surrounding plains. The foot of the volcano could occupy the entire state of Arizona.
There are pieces of Mars on Earth
Despite the fact that no rover has ever returned from an expedition to the red planet, there are still pieces of Mars on Earth. How? Several meteorites discovered in Antarctica broke off from Mars because the composition of the rocks is consistent with the Martian soil and atmosphere.
Missions to Mars cost a lot of money
This fact in itself will not surprise anyone. Of course, sending an expensive spacecraft to a neighboring planet cannot be a cheap pleasure. However, look at the numbers. At 1970s price levels, the Viking mission cost the United States about a billion dollars.
The budget for the Curiosity rover, one of the last Martian scientific laboratories, is an almost unaffordable two and a half billion dollars. This is the most expensive space mission to date.
The flight to Mars and back will take more than a year
If you are planning to join an expedition to Mars, prepare for a long flight. It will take you approximately eight months to reach the surface of the red planet, and another eight to return home to Earth. This is not a transatlantic flight or a train ride along the Trans-Siberian Railway. Traveling to Mars (56 million kilometers) at the speed of a car or train would take almost a lifetime - 66 years.
Thanks to NASA's Curiosity rover, which captured a sweeping panorama of the supposedly dead wastelands of Mars, armchair explorers have discovered a huge "wall" built on Mars.
Mars - buildings of a lost civilization
The Curiosity rover “clicked” an image of an interesting object, already called by ufologists an ancient wall, of course built by the hands of ancient Martians.
Could the entertaining image be yet another piece of evidence that we are seeing the remains of an alien civilization on Mars? In fact, have you ever thought seriously about the possibility of existence in the distant past - even before the appearance of life on Earth - that alien civilizations had already flourished in our space region?
We have no doubt: tens of millions of years ago, Mars was extremely similar to the present Earth, its oceans and thick atmosphere gave life strong chances. Many are sure that the alien civilization of the fourth planet from the Sun flourished, built and improved, massive monuments, structures, temples were erected, cities rose. Life there moved in exactly the same way as it had throughout the long history of the Earth.
Over the past few years, the number of images showing man-made structures on the surface of Mars has quadrupled! By the way, photographs of the Martian surface have practically ceased to be retouched, as was the case with lunar exploration.In fact, almost every image of a robotic exploration team on Mars shows at least one mysterious "object" that appears to have been artificially carved into the rocks or constructed. Of course, most mysterious objects are passed off as the result of pareidolia, but other images cannot be dismissed so easily.
Many scientists have now put aside their skepticism about Mars, and believe that intelligent life had an excellent chance of developing on the planet's surface in the distant past. In one of his scientific papers, : Analysis of new images shows significant evidence of eroded archaeological sites. Taken together, these data require that the hypothesis of Mars as a site must be carefully considered.
— Dr. Brandenburg, bold in his statements, considers the past of Mars to be extremely similar to Earth, with a climate suitable for animals and plants. Dr. Brandenbrug is probably one of the few scientists who dared to say out loud: Mars was inhabited by intelligent beings, and we have evidence of their existence.
What skeptics call ludicrous claims add up to the sum of the evidence, pointing to a bigger picture: Mars was inhabited in the past, and the vast array of heavily eroded structures on Mars support the hypothesis.
Martine Grainey is one of those people who, after analyzing Martian images, are convinced of the existence of an extinct civilization on Mars. According to an image posted on her Facebook group, Martine is illustrating what appears to be a large-scale man-made wall. The wall is in one of the images on the starboard side of the Curiosity rover (link to NASA archive).
In the past, researchers have repeatedly found "strange" things on Mars: . Could the latest image, like all the previous ones, prove that we are looking at the long-vanished civilization of Mars?
Or are we just imagining this in our imagination thanks to the pareidolia effect? What if humanity is a colony of a lost Martian civilization? Let us know what you think…
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On this life-affirming note, we say goodbye, thank you for being with us, pleasant Martian dreams!
Scientists all over the world have already responded to the discovery. According to Kirsten Seebach of Rice University (Houston), the discovery will upset the arguments of many skeptics of the theory of an inhabitable Mars. “The big takeaway from all of this is that we can find evidence. We can find organic material preserved in clay for over 3 billion years. And we see the release of gases that may be associated with subsurface life, or at least associated with the warm, moist conditions in which life thrives on Earth,” she said.
The main idea conveyed to NASA is that this is not life yet, but we have come very close to it. “With these new discoveries, Mars tells us to keep looking for signs of life. I am confident that our ongoing and future missions are preparing even more exciting discoveries on the Red Planet,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, head of NASA’s science program division.
The NASA press conference ended; scientists managed to answer a number of questions from journalists. One of them concerned the possibility of using methane in the atmosphere as fuel in future expeditions to Mars. The answer is, of course, yes!
The discovery of methane on Mars is not news in itself. It has been detected there in small concentrations before. The current discovery is that for the first time a seasonal cyclicity in its concentration has been discovered. “This is the first time we've seen something repeating in the methane situation that gives us insight. This became possible thanks to the long operation of the rover. Long work allowed us to see a picture of seasonal “breathing,” explained Chris Webster.
Scientists speculate that methane may be contained in the subsurface layer of Mars, in water-containing crystals called clathrates. It is assumed that temperature changes during the changing seasons cause the gas to escape and change concentration.
Methane concentrations in the northern hemisphere peak at the end of the Martian summer and are 2.7 times higher than the minimum values.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
As for methane in the atmosphere, Christopher Webster does not exclude the possibility that living microbes are a possible source of the gas. "With this new information, we cannot rule out microbial activity as a possible source," he said.
“The discovery of organics adds to our history of the habitability of the planet. This tells us that these ancient conditions could support life. There was everything necessary to support life. But that doesn’t tell us there was life there.”
These molecules can be the building blocks of life, but they can also have other origins. Scientists cannot yet say whether their origin is related to processes in living nature. “There could be three possible sources. The first is life that we don't know about. The second is meteorites. And the third is geological processes, meaning that the stones form themselves,” says Eigenbrod.
The second discovery was the discovery of three specific types of organic molecules in the surface layer.
NASA emphasizes that the discovery of methane molecules does not at all mean the discovery of life on the planet. Despite the fact that on Earth, methane is indeed often of biogenic origin.
The rover's spectrometer, which analyzes the composition of the atmosphere over the past three years, has recorded seasonal fluctuations in methane - the concentration changes three times during these fluctuations!
Paul Mahaffey:
We are talking about the discovery of “intriguing” organic molecules in the atmosphere of Mars - methane!
The conference has begun!
The Russian neutron detector DAN (Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons) was also installed on board. DAN is a neutron “probe” - the generator of the device irradiates the surface of the planet with high-energy neutrons and, based on the properties of the flow of secondary neutrons, determines the content of hydrogen, and therefore water, as well as hydrated minerals. Areas with large amounts of these substances are of greatest interest for searching for traces of life.
Gale Crater was not chosen for landing by chance - in the distant past it was a Martian sea, and minerals formed during the life of this reservoir accumulated at its bottom. It was assumed that studying its soil would answer the question of the existence of life on Mars.
In the meantime, let's remember the history of this rover. It was delivered to Mars on August 6, 2012. The rover was sent to the Red Planet to determine whether conditions suitable for life existed on Mars, collect detailed data on the climate and geology of Mars, and prepare for landing humans on Mars.
The three-meter rover weighs 899 kg and moves at speeds of up to 144 m/h. It is equipped with cameras, a set of remote sensing instruments, a spectrometer, a bucket for collecting soil, and a set of meteorological equipment. In total, it has 10 scientific instruments for studying the external conditions on the surface of Mars and 17 color and black-and-white cameras for navigation and filming.
The press conference will feature Paul Mahaffey, director of solar system exploration at the NASA Space Flight Center. NASA Goddard; Jennifer Eigenbrod, a specialist at the Goddard Space Flight Center; Chris Webster, Senior Scientist, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena; Ashwin Vasavada, research scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
NASA often calls journalists in advance to announce new results of space missions, and that was the case this time. Journalists were invited to NASA headquarters in Washington. The topic is a new discovery made by the famous Curiosity rover. The meeting is timed to coincide with the publication of scientific articles about this discovery in the journal Science. The essence of the discovery was not announced in advance; it is known only to scientists and science journalists who have a subscription to Science magazine. However, articles are published there under a strict embargo, so you can’t talk about it until 21.00 Moscow time. Let's just say that this is very interesting and concerns the eternal Martian question.
Good evening, dear readers of Gazeta.Ru, this evening we will follow an unusual announcement announced by NASA a few days ago, which concerns an important scientific discovery made on the surface of Mars.
What is “amazing” that Curiosity found on MarsSomething has been found on Mars that could potentially change our understanding of the Red Planet. What could it be? About the intrigue surrounding Curiosity's work on the Red Planet - Konstantin Bogdanov."The discovery of methane and organics on Mars has huge implications for the search for traces of life. Curiosity has already shown that the lake that covered the floor of Gale Crater 3.5 billion years ago was potentially habitable. Given the presence of organics at its bottom, the existence of Martian life is now a question has become even more relevant,” comments Inge Kate, a planetary scientist at the University of Utrecht (the Netherlands), on the discovery.
The methane mystery of Mars
In recent years, geologists, astrobiologists and other specialists have been actively arguing about whether organic reserves or microbes exist in the near-surface soil layers of Mars, where there is liquid water, where cosmic rays hardly penetrate and where it is relatively warm.
When the Curiosity rover first sniffed and analyzed the composition of the air and soil contents of Mars in 2012 and 2013, scientists could not find traces of methane in them. However, just a few months later, the rover’s sensors recorded several spikes in methane concentration.
The Curiosity scientific team first decided to announce this discovery in December 2014 and presented their findings in the journal Science in January 2015. This statement immediately attracted a lot of criticism from a number of other planetary scientists. They considered methane to be a by-product of the work of the rover itself, the result of a leak of one of the reagents from its SAM laboratory, or traces of some “non-living” processes in the soil of Mars.
Ashwin Vasavada, the head of the Curiosity rover's science team, and his colleagues gave a comprehensive answer to all critics, presenting the results of six years of observations of methane concentrations in the atmosphere of Mars and making an amazing discovery in a place called Mojave three years ago.
During its six years of “life” on Mars, as scientists note, the rover saw two Martian winters, autumn, spring and summer. This allowed Vasavada and his team to accurately measure seasonal variations in methane in the atmosphere using the TLS instrument and improve upon past measurements.
Planetary scientists are now fully confident that the concentration of methane in the Martian atmosphere rises during summer and falls during winter, reaching concentrations of 2.5 and 6.5 parts per ten billion. The threefold increase in the proportion of methane in the summer air of Mars, as geologists emphasize, cannot be explained by atmospheric processes or by the fact that solar ultraviolet radiation is better at decomposing organic debris from asteroids falling on the Red Planet.
All this suggests that methane is formed in the lower layers of the soil of Mars either as a result of microbial activity, or as a result of the decomposition of clathrates, compounds of methane and water, or due to some geothermal processes.
As shown by sharp spikes in the “local” concentration of methane, exceeding typical values by tens of times, this gas accumulates inside peculiar microcaves and reservoirs in the soil and periodically breaks out.
"Pantry of Life" on Mars
In November 2012, John Grotzinger, former director of the Curiosity rover's science team, announced a "landmark discovery" on Mars that he said was destined for textbooks. Two weeks later, when this statement had already become the subject of the most fantastic rumors, NASA planetary scientists announced the discovery of perchlorates - primitive organic molecules - in the soil of Mars.
This discovery immediately dashed all hopes for the discovery of the first traces of extraterrestrial life, since such molecules can form in the soil as a result of “non-living” chemical reactions and the interaction of other forms of organic matter with ultraviolet and cosmic rays.
The perchlorate fiasco, Grotzinger and his colleagues write, was fully justified in January 2015, when Curiosity reached the base of Mount Sharp, the central peak on the floor of Gale Crater, and began studying the chemical composition of the boulders and rocks of one of the local hills called the Mojave.
Scientists' attention was drawn to strange "striped" deposits of clay and other rocks that formed at the bottom of an ancient Martian lake about 3.5 billion years ago. When the rover drilled through them and studied their composition, geologists were in for a surprise - they contained a huge number of complex organic molecules.
The Curiosity mass spectrometer is quite modest in its capabilities, but even they were enough to detect traces of thiophene, sulfur and butyrene compounds, methanethiol, sulfur and methane, benzothiophene, as well as a large number of simple hydrocarbons, their aromatic “cousins” and a number of others molecules.
As Grotzinger and his colleagues emphasize, all these molecules were most likely part of more complex organic matter. Due to a solvent leak, scientists had to conduct all experiments inside the SAM only at high temperatures, 600-800 degrees Celsius, which should have destroyed all the large molecules and split them into many small “tails.”
Approximately the same molecules were found near Mojave, in the town of Confidence Hills, where the rover stopped a month later. Their presence, scientists conclude, does not necessarily indicate that life existed on Mars 3.5 million years ago. It suggests that reactions could occur in the waters of Martian lakes that gave rise to such complex organic matter, and that the food sources for potential life were more diverse than previously thought.
Interestingly, the neighboring regions of the Gale Crater floor, where Curiosity first found traces of the lake, do not contain similar reserves of organic matter, despite their older age. Scientists believe this is due to the fact that they were exposed quite a long time ago compared to the Mojave and Confidence Hills, and all organic matter had time to erode from them.
“Regardless of how exactly this organic matter arose, its presence suggests that traces of life may be present on the surface of Mars, despite the radiation and large number of oxidizing agents in its atmosphere. They may be hidden under its surface or in rocks that have fallen on several thousand years ago,” the scientists conclude.
