More formaldehyde rained down in places that were already wet and favorable for prebiotic chemistry.
Mars
Posted inResearch Spotlights
InSight into Seismology on the Red Planet
Viking 2 detected two possible marsquakes in 1976. New analysis links one to the same region where InSight recorded nearly 1,000 marsquakes decades later.
Posted inOpinions
What We Could Lose by Trying to Make Mars Habitable
The rock, ice, and atmosphere of Mars hold a largely unread archive. Terraforming could erase it before the biggest scientific questions are answered.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Unveiling Atmospheric Circulation on Mars with Magnetic Field Data
Not only can the magnetometer on NASA’s MAVEN satellite track magnetic fields on Mars; it can also track atmospheric circulation – using machine learning.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
The Magnetic Face of Plasma Irregularities on Mars
Plasma density irregularity is nothing new on Mars, but the accompanying magnetic field irregularity observed on NASA’s MAVEN satellite is.
Posted inNews
A Rare Look at How Life First Colonizes Cooling Lava Tubes
Life finds a way, and when volcanoes form new land, it gets going as soon as temperatures drop to manageable levels—even underground.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
What Australian Lakes Showed Us About Martian Hydrology
Studying the hydrology of the Yilgarn Craton reveals how the Red Planet may have evolved.
Posted inResearch & Developments
Perseverance Spots Organic Matter on Mars
The Mars Perseverance rover has detected intact organic molecules near previously-described potential signatures of ancient life, according to a new study published today in Science Advances.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Carbon-Rich Rocks May Have Cooled the Ancient Martian Atmosphere
Data from the Perseverance rover indicate abundant carbonates in Jezero Crater, a finding with implications for Mars’s climatic history.
Posted inNews
What Winds Whip Up Otherworldly Waves?
New research goes back to the basics to explain how atmospheric conditions affect the creation of wind-driven waves on other worlds.