Astronomer Asaph Hall met Angeline Stickney at New York Central College in 1855. Two years his elder, she instructed him in geometry and German, and was reputedly so strong a mathematician that Hall and his classmate made a game of trying to stump her, yet never could. The pair were married the following year. ForContinue reading "Aug. 17, 1877: Asaph Hall discovers Phobos"
From the rim of Jezero Crater, Earth is only a bright point in the sky. On July 2, NASA’s Perseverance rover watched that point vanish behind Phobos, Mars’ larger moon, and recorded the event with its Mastcam-Z camera. The sequence is the first time humanity has observed Earth disappearing behind an object from the surface […]
After spending the 1850s at Harvard Observatory calculating orbits, Asaph Hall became an assistant at the U.S. Naval Observatory at Washington, D.C., in 1862. He was quickly promoted, and by 1873 had not only held several scientific discussions with Abraham Lincoln during the president’s visits to the observatory, but had also been put in chargeContinue reading "Aug. 11, 1877: Asaph Hall discovers Deimos"
A rare meteorite from Mars is giving scientists a new look at a mysterious period in the Red Planet’s history. Researchers at Boston College have found that the rock formed about 1.27 billion years ago and may have come from a part of Mars’s deep interior that remained largely unchanged for billions of years. The […]
More than 140 million miles away from Earth, a rare event recently occurred in the twilight skies above Mars, and it was all captured on camera by NASA’s Perseverance rover.
Imagery of a celestial alignment, featuring Earth as it briefly vanished behind the Martian moon Phobos, was revealed in composite photos captured by Perseverance’s Mastcam-Z instrument in early July as the intrepid rover embarked on its 1,907th Martian day, or sol, on the Red Planet.
The rover’s Mastcam-Z camera system, developed by Arizona State University in collaboration with Malin Space Science Systems, was built for capturing high-resolution panoramic zoom imagery of the Martian landscape. Although its main objectives involve its investigations of Jezero Crater and ancient geological features preserved there for eons, which may even include evidence of past microbial life, cases like the recent celestial alignment showcase how the rover’s cameras can also provide unique insights into astronomical events.
A sequence of composite images (after color correction) reveals the irregularly-shaped Martian moon Phobos with Earth, appearing as a tiny point of light, disappearing behind it (Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS/SSI)
A Robot on Mars Captures an Occultation
Captured against fading twilight, our Earthly home appears as little more than a tiny, bright speck of light as it slowly passes behind the irregularly shaped Martian moon, in what astronomers refer to as an occultation.
NASA applied processing to the rare images, which helped to filter out some of the background light, revealing the brief celestial pairing in greater detail. The resulting imagery offers a glimpse of a dark backdrop that now better highlights the motion of Earth and Phobos in their treks through the Martian sky.
A Sunset Unlike Any Other
The image was obtained roughly 40 minutes after the Martian sunset, as the natural orbital path Phobos follows causes it to appear to drift upward in the new sequence of images, while Earth moves diagonally downward, then slips out of view behind the oddly shaped Martian companion.
Imagery with enhanced inset of the Martian moon Phobos with Earth visible behind it (Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS/SSI)
In an annotated version released by NASA, timestamps spanning just 40 seconds illustrate the progression of the event in single frames, offering a look at a sunset unlike any ever seen on Earth.
That isn’t to say that the same effect can’t be seen from our planet, but in reverse: a lunar occultation where Mars passes behind the Moon can also be observed here, under the right conditions.
Occultations are frequently used by astronomers to help study the positions and motions of various celestial bodies in this way. However, seeing one from the surface of another planet is a rare treat, offering a view of Earth as a distant point of light.
In the past, Perseverance has also captured images of a lunar eclipse from its position on the Martian surface, as Phobos was seen passing in front of the Sun. Past imagery collected by NASA’s robotic explorer has also documented appearances of the Martian moon Deimos in the Red Planet’s early morning skies.
Colors of Change on a Red Planet
Although Mars’ characteristic rusty hues are ever-present, the recent imagery also offers a glimpse of other subtle colors seen in the Martian environment, particularly at twilight. With subtle bluish grays that gradually transition to redder tones, the new images offer a more nuanced and colorful look at the Red Planet.
Close up of the original composite images before color adjustments, where Phobos can be faintly seen against the Martian twilight, with Earth appearing as a speck of light behind it (Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS/SSI).
Perseverance has now spent more than five years exploring Mars, and its ongoing discoveries have added a wealth of new information to the growing body of knowledge scientists have collected about our nearby planetary neighbor.
As for the recent imagery the rover captured, such a unique view requires careful timing, along with a bit of good fortune, according to Mark Lemmon, a Mastcam-Z co-investigator at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado.
“Phobos crosses the Martian sky three times a day, and Earth is visible for months at a stretch,” Lemmon said in a statement, adding that “catching one directly behind the other takes planning and a little luck.”
Additional details provided by NASA about the new imagery can be found here and here.
Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. A longtime reporter on science, defense, and technology with a focus on space and astronomy, he can be reached atmicah@thedebrief.org. Follow him on X @MicahHanks, and at micahhanks.com.
Picture it: A swarm of tiny robot helicopters descends through a reddish-brown sky, landing gracefully on the Martian surface. What are they wearing? Tiny capes.
NASA's SkyFall mission will send a trio of mini rotorcraft to Mars equipped with ground penetrating radar technology which happens to look like little capes. These uniquely designed swaths of fabric look decidedly strange or even accidental in new videos from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) that show the little drones practice landing. But these capes are actually flexible antennae that will allow the craft to peer beneath the Red Planet's surface in search of water ice.
"The only way to detect shallow subsurface ice remotely is to fly close to the ground," Adrian Tang, SkyFall’s ground-penetrating radar lead instrument scientist at JPL, said in a statement on Thursday (Aug. 6). "By flying low and slow, a SkyFall helicopter could capture radar images that resolve the fine layering where dry soil gives way to ice, detecting its presence and mapping its extent."
Orbiting spacecraft have studied Mars for decades, imaging the planet and mapping it with radar. But from orbit, their radar is unable to see the first few feet of material just below the planet's surface — a zone where scientists expect to find shallow ice deposits mixed in with the rocks and dust. This work could be important for future astronauts who need to better understand the ground below their feet for safety reasons, and for future travelers searching for accessible ice to process for drinking water, oxygen and fuel.
Skyfall will follow in the footsteps of Ingenuity, the first rotorcraft on another world, which hitched a ride to Mars aboard NASA's Perseverance rover. The new choppers are based heavily on Ingenuity, which weighed just 4 pounds (1.8 kilograms) here on Earth. But Skyfall will be more capable than Ingenuity, whose main job was to show that choppers can explore the thin skies of Mars.
SkyFall's tiny cape ground-penetrating radar, which uses a type of flexible antenna called Vivaldi that was invented back in 1978, is designed to survey up to 16 feet (5 meters) below the Martian surface. The radar will be able to reach anywhere from several yards below the planet's surface to the uppermost layers of surface material.
And the antenna's unique design ensures that the SkyFall drones will be able to make these subsurface observations without damaging the equipment during landing.. The antenna is extremely lightweight, and the team miniaturized it to be both the right size and shape to fit the tiny helicopters, which sit just 6 inches (15 centimeters) above the ground at rest. The tricky thing was, the designers had to miniaturize the radar antennae while maintaining functionality. But they did just that, and these tiny radar capes will be able to bend and move out of the way as the rotorcraft do their thing, flying above and landing on the Red Planet.
"Although we managed to shrink the antenna quite a bit, it is about 1.5 times longer than the helicopter’s legs," Christine Gebara, SkyFall ground-penetrating radar mechanical lead at JPL, added in the statement.
"That means during landing, the Vivaldi has to bend out of the way — and if it lands on a rock, it bends even further," she added. "But when the helicopter takes off again, the antenna must spring back into place for data collection. Because SkyFall is expected to make dozens of flights exploring Mars, we needed an antenna that could repeatedly handle those pressures without losing its shape in flight."
A radar engineer at NASA JPL works to test the antenna on the SkyFall helicopter. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
To make these little capes capable of withstanding incredible feats on another world, the engineers behind the helicopters covered the antenna in layers of polyester and Vectran, a flexible (but incredibly strong) material that was previously used for the airbag that cushioned NASA's Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers during their touchdowns in 2004. The antenna's shape is also reinforced with flexible fiberglass tape springs and a lightweight structure. In total, each antenna weighs a miniscule 5 ounces (142 grams).
But a crafty design isn't enough. Getting to Mars is no small feat, and NASA needs to be sure that these little helicopters and their gear are up to the challenge. So, in JPL's Environmental Test Laboratory, which recreates different elements of environments beyond Earth, the SkyFall team put the rotorcraft and its little radar antenna to the test. They bent and flexed the antenna over and over, recreating multiple landings on the surface, exposed the craft to extreme temperatures, and continually checked to make sure that, throughout this testing, the helicopter could still transmit and receive radar signals. At the end of this testing, the antenna had endured 200 simulated Mars landings and was still working just fine. That is more than twice the number of landings expected from the mission.
"This test checked every box it was supposed to and answered our biggest technical questions," Tang added. "While we still have work ahead of us before the antenna is fully flight-qualified, this was a major milestone, and the hardware performed exactly as expected."
The trio of SkyFall helicopters will put their radar capes to the ultimate test when they fly to Mars. NASA plans to launch this mission to the Red Planet in 2028 aboard NASA's Space Reactor-1 Freedom, the first nuclear fission-powered interplanetary spacecraft.
Et si l'IA ne se contentait plus d'assister l'exploration spatiale, mais en devenait l'architecture fondamentale ? Maintenance prédictive, autosuffisance sur Mars ou sur la Lune, défense orbitale, médecine autonome à des millions de kilomètres de tout secours : ce que prépare la prochaine...
July 20 marked the 50th anniversary of one of the biggest robotic spaceflight achievements in NASA’s history: the landing of the Viking 1 spacecraft on Mars. It was the first […]
NASA’s Curiosity rover has stumbled on the largest patch of polygon-shaped ground fractures it has ever seen on Mars, a discovery that could reveal more about the planet’s watery past.
A close-up of the polygon fractures discovered by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover highlights their honeycomb-like textures. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)
NASA's Curiosity Mars rover spotted surprising shapes in the Red Planet soil while exploring a large valley.
What is it?
These images were captured on June 19 and 20, 2026, or the 4,930th and 4,931st Martian days of Curiosity's mission. They show honeycomb-like patterns referred to as "polygonal fractures" found in a valley on Mars known as Valle Grande. They measure about 1.5 to 3 inches (4 to 8 centimeters) across.
While Curiosity has seen other curious geometric patterns on Mars before, scientists were surprised by this most recent find.
"We've seen a lot of fascinating landscapes through Curiosity's eyes, but this sea of polygons took our breath away," project scientist Ashwin Vasavada of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a statement. "We measured their shapes and chemistry carefully and are hopeful there are clues in the data as to how these features formed."
A panorama taken by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover showing a large field of hexagonal shapes in the Martian soil. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)
Why is it incredible?
This field of polygons in Valle Grande extends as far as Curiosity's instruments could see, even around the base of a steep hill scientists named "Miraflores."
NASA's Curiosity Mars rover captured this sand-capped butte, nicknamed "Miraflores," estimated to be about 20 feet (6 meters) tall, on June 11, 2026. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)
While mission scientists have theories about how these structures form, it ultimately remains a mystery how they formed.
It's thought that changes in temperatures on Mars could have caused water to squeeze through sediment layers, but scientists will need to collect more data before they can reach a conclusive answer.
Planting boots on Mars is hard enough. But getting "breathing room" on the Red Planet without inhaling toxic dust is yet another issue.
Given NASA's plans to eventually put astronauts on the Red Planet, the agency assembled a Martian Dust Limit Working Group earlier this year to review what's known and unknown about the toxicological hazard to human crews from exposure to Mars dust. The ultimate goal was to establish a permissible exposure limit for humans on the Red Planet by compiling a comprehensive set of expert perspectives regarding Martian dust toxicology, exposure pathways and mitigation strategies.
The working group's conclusions reinforced the view that an initial Martian dust standard "must balance conservatism with operational feasibility while accommodating architectural and scientific uncertainty," the report states. Furthermore, the report explains, "as additional Martian data and toxicological research become available, this standard should be periodically revisited to ensure continued protection of crew health during human exploration of Mars."
Unique study
A panel member for that study was Brian Hynek professor in the Department of Earth Science and a research associate at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, both at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
"It was a unique study," Hynek told Space.com, conducted by NASA specialists, space medicine experts, habitat designers, including toxicologists, volcanologists and geologists. "The task was to help gauge health hazards to humans, both for short and long-term stays," he said.
Just highlighting the differences between the moon and Mars played a role, said Hynek. "The moon is worse in some ways and Mars is worse in other ways."
Disneyland of dust
To be sure, one outcome from Apollo moonwalkers – the "dusty dozen" – is that dealing with lunar dust proved to be troublesome, much more than expected. The aged moon is a Disneyland of dust and crews that went there attested to that fact.
Once out and about, moonwalkers coped with very fine, tiny particles composed of sharp, glassy material. Lunar dust stuck to everything it came in contact with; dust eroded their spacesuits, caused overheating on equipment and instrumentation, compromised seals on their spacesuits, even irritated the eyes and lungs of moonwalkers.
"On Mars, dust particles are a little more rounded, not as jagged and cutting into you. But then you have all the extra chemical components and minerals that you don't have on the moon, like really unhealthy perchlorates," Hynek said. "We can use the lunar knowledge, but Mars is a totally different place," he added.
At the conclusion of Apollo 17's mission in December 1972, moonwalking suits and space helmets are covered by lunar dust. (Image credit: NASA)
Heavy metals
Hynek noted that Martian dust is known to contain various carcinogens, such as silica and numerous heavy metals. He co-authored a recent paper on "Potential Health Impacts, Treatments, and Countermeasures of Martian Dust on Future Human Space Exploration."
"There's talk about growing crops on Mars," Hynek observed. "The martian soil is full of all these nasty chemicals. So the astronauts might get more exposure from what they are growing on Mars than the actual airborne dust," said Hynek.
Then there's the dust that will assuredly find its way into the habitat, Hynek said, so engineers are looking at filtering systems and just how much time will be required to clean the inside of the habitat.
"It's good to have the forethought and to start considering the Martian dust and its hazards. It poses a lot more health hazards than the lunar dust," Hynek concluded.
Learned our lesson
Joel Levine, a research professor in applied science at William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, is a leading expert on lunar dust, engineering and safety concerns. He was not a panel member of the NASA report.
Levine cited earlier thinking from a recent National Academy of Sciences report on human exploration of Mars. Two goals noted in that 2026 report are Mars dust-related:
Determine what controls the onset and evolution of major dust storms, which dominate present-day atmospheric variability.
Characterize the effects of Martian dust on human physiology and hardware lifetime.
"This indicates that Mars dust is on the minds of mission planners! This is good news based on our experience with lunar dust on the Apollo landings," said Levine. "It looks like we learned our lesson about dust at future human landing sites."
Levine stated that Mars sample returns would be very helpful to characterize Martian dust samples for chemical composition and other qualities. "Unfortunately, it does not look like the Mars samples already collected will ever be returned to the Earth for analysis," he said.
Martian dust seen on NASA's Perseverance rover on July 27, 2026 (Sol 1932) by the rover's Right Mastcam-Z camera. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU)
Major takeaways
Shaunna Morrison, an associate professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Rutgers University in New Jersey, served as a panel member on the Martian Dust Limit Working Group.
"One of the major takeaways from the Mars dust working group is that martian dust is a real crew-health and engineering issue, but it is also a tractable one if it is treated as a design requirement from the beginning," Morrison emphasized.
The worry is not that Mars dust is uniquely or catastrophically toxic based on what we know now, Morrison told Space.com.
"The concern is that future crews will be living and working in a closed habitat, repeatedly going outside, bringing dust back in on suits and equipment, in a low-humidity environment," said Morrison. That's a condition in which small particles are more prone to becoming airborne and potentially inhaled, she said, and potentially crew members being exposed to fine respirable particles over many days.
A region-wide seasonal dust storm obscures the Jezero Crater in this image from NASA's Mars Perseverance rover, acquired using its Left Mastcam-Z camera on Aug. 20, 2024 (Sol 1244, or Martian day 1,244 of the rover's mission). (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU)
Prevention first
Morrison said that a key point is that we do not have as yet returned samples of authentic airborne martian dust. So NASA has to build a conservative standard using the best available evidence: lunar dust toxicology, Mars simulant studies, and the very extensive chemical and mineralogical datasets from Mars rovers and landers, she pointed out.
"The best strategy is prevention first," Morrison said. "Keep as much dust as possible outside the habitat, remove it quickly when it gets in, monitor airborne particles, and design the system so crews are not relying on medical countermeasures after exposure," she advised.
Curiosity has found a vast sea of Martian polygons that may reveal how water and climate once reshaped the Red Planet. NASA’s Curiosity rover has encountered an enormous field of honeycomb-shaped fractures while climbing through a Martian valley known as “Valle Grande.” Each geometric feature measures roughly 1.5 to 3 inches (4 to 8 centimeters) [...]
NASA's Curiosity rover has sent back images of honeycomb-like textures called polygonal fractures, each one about 1.5 to 3 inches (4 to 8 centimeters) across. NASA reports:
The mission has spotted small patches of these geometric shapes several times before, but nothing at the scale discovered in Valle Grande. In a 360-degree panorama that the rover captured on June 19 and 20, the 4,930th and 4,931st Martian days, or sols, of the mission, the polygonal shapes spread in all directions for as far as the rover can see... "[T]his sea of polygons took our breath away," said the mission's project scientist, Ashwin Vasavada of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California... Some of the polygons that the mission has spotted in the past clearly formed as mud cracks, though a variety of processes can contribute to their honeycomb textures, including cycles of warm and cold temperatures or compression that squeezed water out of the sediment when the surface was buried.
These newly discovered polygons are among the many surprises Curiosity has trundled across since landing on Mars 14 years ago, on Aug. 5, 2012. Besides sulfur crystals, shiny meteorites, and other interesting geologic features, the rover has made major discoveries about the ancient Martian environment — most importantly, that it had the water, chemistry, and nutrients to support microbial life.
Billions of years ago, lakes and streams dappled the lower foothills of Mount Sharp, a 3-mile-tall (5-kilometer-tall) mountain that Curiosity has been ascending since 2014. The rover has previously uncovered chemistry left over from Mars' watery history, including carbon-based molecules believed to be precursors to RNA and DNA, two nucleic acids that carry genetic information. Scientists have no way of knowing whether these organic molecules were created by biologic or geologic processes — either path is possible — but their discovery reconfirmed that ancient Mars had the right chemistry to support life.
Dark, pebble-sized rocks also litter the area, NASA writes in a blog post, saying it's a "still-to-be-resolved question" as to whether they're bits of Mars that "floated" down from higher in the sediment layers, or "were ejected from distant impacts outside of Gale crater, or are meteorites from beyond Mars altogether."
Nous n'en sommes toujours qu'au début de l'exploration de la Planète rouge, aussi bien pour sa géologie que pour sa possible exobiologie. Cette exploration est grandement facilitée avec des machines, comme dans tout le Système solaire et comme l'avait prédit Arthur Clarke. Aujourd'hui, c'est...
Explorer for Artemis Geology, Lunar, and Earth — a NASA satellite program to study surface biology and geology on Earth, with technologies that could support future missions to the Moon and Mars.
Future Mission
NASA’s EAGLE program — Explorer for Artemis Geology, Lunar, and Earth — will be a series of satellite missions studying surface properties using technologies for Earth observation that will also benefit future missions to the Moon and Mars, where they could identify critical resources and safe landing sites.
The satellites making up the first two EAGLE missions will study biology and geology on Earth’s surface to support agriculture, disaster response, and other needs. Each mission will carry a different instrument with capabilities that complement each other. The first mission (EAGLE-VSWIR) is scheduled to take flight in 2028.
Mission Type
Orbiter
Target
Earth, Moon, Mars
Launch
No earlier than 2028
Objective
Study surface composition and changes
EAGLE-VSWIR
EAGLE-VSWIR (Visible to Shortwave Infrared) will observe the Earth’s surface every 16 days with a high-resolution imaging spectrometer, which measures light reflected from the planet’s surface, separating wavelengths across the visual and into the infrared spectrum. The patterns created by light being reflected or absorbed across this spectral range act like fingerprints, letting scientists identify the composition of the surface.
A similar instrument, NASA’s EMIT (Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation), has been monitoring Earth from the International Space Station since July 2022, characterizing the surface mineral composition of Earth’s arid lands, monitoring ecosystem status, and tracking health and safety hazards — such as methane leaks and acid mine drainage — among other applications.
EAGLE-VSWIR will have 25 times more capability than EMIT has today. This technological leap will allow scientists to map surface deposits of critical and rare-earth minerals, strengthen food security, and aid wildfire prevention and recovery. It can also highlight environmental hazards such as oil spills or landslide risks, and monitor water quality and availability.
The front of this image cube shows a region in Nevada observed by NASA’s EMIT imaging spectrometer; the cube’s sides show the spectral fingerprint for every point in the image and can be used to discover mineral resources. EAGLE-VSWIR will have 25 times greater performance beyond NASA’s current state-of-the-art EMIT.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
EAGLE-TIR
The EAGLE-TIR mission will provide Thermal InfraRed (TIR) imagery when it launches two to three years after EAGLE-VSWIR, measuring energy emitted from the surface and producing data that scientists can use to map temperature, composition, and critical mineral deposits. On Earth that would let researchers monitor wildfires and volcanic activity, track drought and water use by crops, study urban heat islands, observe the rates that snow or ice accumulates or melts, and better understand Earth’s resilient ecosystems.
EAGLE-TIR follows on from ECOSTRESS (ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station), which has been observing Earth from the International Space Station since 2018. ECOSTRESS was designed to study how different ecosystems respond to drought and water stress, and the data has provided a vital understanding of how plants’ water use changes throughout the day. Since ECOSTRESS also measures emitted energy in the thermal infrared, its surface-temperature products have also been used for urban planning and wildfire monitoring.
Further innovation and lessons learned from ECOSTRESS has led to EAGLE-TIR, which will carry a multi-band thermal radiometer. EAGLE-TIR’s great strength compared to existing missions is that it provides detailed imagery of the entire globe every two days, day and night, at multiple wavelengths not available from other instruments.
This image shows the minerals contained in Namibian dunes using ECOSTRESS data. EAGLE-TIR will have more spectral channels to enable even better mineral discrimination.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
EAGLE Program
By advancing vital techniques for measuring our planet’s surface composition, resources, and hazards, the EAGLE program addresses critical needs in Earth observation, with technologies that can also transfer to planetary exploration, where they’ll serve as pathfinders for future missions to the Moon and Mars.
As the Artemis II crew came close to passing behind the Moon and experiencing a planned loss of signal, they captured this image of a crescent Earth setting on the Moon’s limb on April 6, 2026.
NASA
Featured Video
EAGLE
NASA unveiled the EAGLE program as one part of its “Ignition” event on March 24, 2026, when it announced a wide-ranging series of transformative agencywide initiatives. With EAGLE (the Explorer for Artemis Geology, Lunar, and Earth missions), NASA will deploy breakthrough hyperspectral images across Earth with later missions anticipated for the Moon and Mars in rapid succession. On Earth they’ll identify critical minerals for national security, enable precision agriculture, and support disaster response. On Earth and at Mars they will locate critical minerals and resources such as ice for propellants, rare-earth elements for technology, and construction materials for habitats.
EMIT
EMIT (Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation) measures the mineral composition of Earth’s dust source regions, to help scientists understand how they heat or cool our planet.
Join us for continuing coverage as our leaders discuss the agency's implementation of the National Space Policy and our plans to advance science and discover...
This is the first evidence that the mineral garnet may have been formed within the crust of Mars itself, heralding clues to the planet’s complex history.
A vast field of mesmerizing polygons has left Mars scientists enthralled.
Don’t be mistaken: NASA didn’t send a robot across the solar system so its eggheads could get a rundown in basic geometry. Instead, the Curiosity rover stumbled upon a stretch of the Martian valley called “Valle Grande” where the landscape is defined by honeycomb-shaped patterns ranging two to four inches in diameter.
These so-called “polygonal fractures” have been spotted elsewhere on the Red Planet, but never texturing an entire landscape at such a scale.
“We’ve seen a lot of fascinating landscapes through Curiosity’s eyes, but this sea of polygons took our breath away,” project scientist Ashwin Vasavada at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a statement. “We measured their shapes and chemistry carefully and are hopeful there are clues in the data as to how these features formed.”
Curiosity has delivered a new 360-degree panorama from Mars. “We’ve seen a lot of fascinating landscapes through Curiosity’s eyes, but this sea of polygons took our breath away,” said the mission’s project scientist. 1/2 pic.twitter.com/G7sV6Xafkq
The Curiosity rover stumbled on the polygon field while ascending the foothills of a three-mile-high mountain called Mount Sharp, where it’s been roaming since 2014. Captured with its Mastcam instrument, a panorama composed of 340 images taken back on June 19 show the hexagons dominating a huge stretch of the landscape.
On Mars, polygonal textures are generally mud cracks. What created them hints at the planet’s fascinating geological history: the honeycombs can form as a result of water drying up and causing sediments to shrink, or they can be carved out by extreme temperature swings. By studying these features, scientists hope to piece together how flowing water once helped shape the Red Planet’s surface.
A new look at more than two decades’ worth of archival data from NASA’s Spirit mission suggests that the Martian soil may hold iron-bearing minerals -- hematite and altered magnetite -- that were too faint for scientists to detect in real time during the mission.
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