Four-legged, autonomous robots known as “Mars Dogs” will explore previously inaccessible caves to look for signs of life and potential locations for future human colonies.
Mars
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Martian Dust Activities Induce Electrochemistry
Amorphous materials generated from sulfur and chloride salts by electrostatic discharge in a Mars chamber suggest widespread electrical processes during dust activities.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
First Detection of a Built-In Wobble on Another Planet
Spacecraft find that Mars oscillates 10 centimeters off its axis of rotation.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
A Precise Mosaic View of Mars’s South Pole
A new workflow improves the process of creating massive, accurate mosaics from spacecraft-captured images of a planet’s surface.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Capturing Heat-Driven Atmospheric Tides on Mars
Spacecraft observations and model simulations provide new insights into tidal patterns that transport momentum and energy into the planet’s upper atmosphere.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Self-Repairing Blemishes on the Surface of Mars
A new study of small impact craters at Mars landing sites suggests that active processes degrade and infill depressions at similar rates in locations separated by thousands of kilometers.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Megaripple Migration Offers Insights into Martian Atmosphere
The movement of large sand ripples, documented for the first time, suggests Mars is windier than we thought.
Posted inEditors' Vox
Curiosity Solves the Mystery of Gale Crater’s Hematite Ridge
A new special issue of JGR: Planets details the water-rich history of a distinctive geomorphic feature on Mars dubbed Vera Rubin ridge, as investigated by the Curiosity rover.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Insights from Calibration of the HP³ Radiometer on InSight
A detailed analysis of Heatflow and Physical Properties Package Radiometer on the Mars InSight lander, including changing instrument sensitivity and calibration coefficients.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Who Wants to Count All the Craters on Mars? Not Me!
Humans found hundreds of thousands of craters on Mars greater than 1 kilometer in diameter, but now computers automate the process delivering crater counts as well as geologically meaningful ages.