Curiosity’s two-step heating experiment of mudstone at Gale crater reveals minerals that formed in the presence of water less than 3 billion years ago.
Mars
Posted inNews
Tests Indicate Which Edible Plants Could Thrive on Mars
An undergraduate experiment grew vegetables and herbs in simulated Martian soil under Mars-like reduced daylight. The tasty results suggest that Mars colonists could farm their own produce.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Where the Solar Wind Meets Mars
A comprehensive look at how the solar wind is diverted around Mars, including the relative strength of the three biggest forces at work in this region.
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Four Planetary Landscapes That Scientists Can’t Explain
These are just a handful of the hundreds of mysterious features across our solar neighborhood that beg to be studied closer.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Where Did the Water Go on Mars?
Primordial solar storm conditions are believed to have significantly enhanced the loss of water and other atmospheric volatiles in Mars’ history.
Posted inEditors' Vox
A Rover’s Eye View of Moving Martian Dunes
A new special issue of JGR: Planets presents findings on sand motion, morphology, and mineralogy from the Curiosity rover’s traverse of the active Bagnold dune field in Gale crater.
Posted inAGU News
Malin Receives 2017 Whipple Award
Michael C. Malin will receive the 2017 Whipple Award at the 2017 American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, to be held 11–15 December in New Orleans, La. The award recognizes “an individual who has made an outstanding contribution in the field of planetary science.”
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Angles of Plasma Ropes near Mars Point to Different Origins
Variation in the orientation of flux rope features in Mars’s magnetotail suggests that some of them form on the planet’s Sun-facing side and travel to the night side.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Curiosity Spies Shifting Sands on Mars
Images from the rover’s pioneering encounter with sand dunes on Mars constrain wind speeds required to move sand in the thin Martian atmosphere.
Posted inNews
Scientists, Policy Makers Push for Mars Exploration
At a recent forum, Sen. Ted Cruz also announced a Senate hearing to revisit the half-century-old Outer Space Treaty, and he warned about potential military threats to the nation’s satellites.