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SAN FRANCISCO - Nearly two years after NASA's twin rovers parachuted to Mars, a Jekyll-and-Hyde picture is emerging about the planet's past and whether it could have supported life. Both Spirit and Opportunity uncovered geologic evidence of a wet past, a sign that ancient Mars may have been hospitable to life. But new findings reveal the Red Planet was also once such a hostile place that the environment may have prevented life from developing. "For much of its history, it was a very forbidding place," said mission principal investigator Steven Squyres of Cornell University. Scientists stressed that the rovers were...

Taking into account the surface of Mars today, a likely location for this water would be in the Northern Plains, which has long been considered a good candidate because of the low-lying ground. An ancient ocean there would have covered about 20 percent of the planet's surface. By comparison, the Atlantic Ocean occupies 17 percent of Earth's surface. "This ocean had a maximum depth of around 5,000 feet or around one mile deep," Villanueva said. "It's deep - not as deep as the deepest points of our oceans, but comparable to the average depth of the Mediterranean Sea." By combining...

Future Mars explorers may be able to get all the water they need out of the red dirt beneath their boots, a new study suggests. NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has found that surface soil on the Red Planet contains about 2 percent water by weight. That means astronaut pioneers could extract roughly 2 pints (1 liter) of water out of every cubic foot (0.03 cubic meters) of Martian dirt they dig up, said study lead author Laurie Leshin, of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y.

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has apparently made a discovery "for the history books," but we'll have to wait a few weeks to learn what the new Red Planet find may be, media reports suggest. The discovery was made by Curiosity's Sample Analysis at Mars instrument, NPR reported today (Nov. 20). SAM is the rover's onboard chemistry lab, and it's capable of identifying organic compounds — the carbon-containing building blocks of life as we know it. SAM apparently spotted something interesting in a soil sample Curiosity's huge robotic arm delivered to the instrument recently. "This data is gonna be one for...

If you’ve got a nose for news, here’s a bulletin: Mars may smell to high heaven. Recent revelations about the red planet from NASA’s two Mars exploration rovers -- Spirit and Opportunity -- have relayed back details about the volcanic and water-laden landscape. For example, at the Meridiani Planum site in which the wheeled Opportunity now roves, the robotic field geologist found a very high concentration of sulfur. The chemical form of this sulfur appears to be in magnesium, iron or other sulfate salts. Using its science gear, the robot has detected a hydrated iron sulfate mineral called jarosite. On...

The findings were made by the Mars Odyssey spacecraft. Ice reservoirs found on Mars By Dr David Whitehouse BBC News Online science editor Water-ice has been found in vast quantities just below the surface across great swathes of the planet Mars. The finding by the American space agency (Nasa) is undoubtedly one of the most important made about the Red Planet. It solves one of its deepest mysteries, points the way for manned exploration and reignites the question of whether life may exist on the planet. Insiders suggest that, partly as a result of this finding, Nasa may now commit...

Did a giant impact create the two faces of Mars? 16:29 15 March 2007 NewScientist.com news service David Shiga, Houston Mars's northern hemisphere is lower in elevation – by about 5 kilometres – than its southern hemisphere (see image below). This coloured topographical map shows low elevations in blue and high elevations in yellow and red. The map is centred on a latitude of 55° north (Illustration: Mike Caplinger/MSSS) Mars's southern hemisphere is higher and more heavily cratered than the northern hemisphere, suggesting it is older terrain. The two low elevations (blue) in this map, which is centred on the...

Jafar Arkani-Hamed of McGill University discovered that five impact basins--dubbed Argyre, Hellas, Isidis, Thaumasia and Utopia--form an arclike pattern on the Martian surface. Three of the basins are well-preserved and remain visible today. The locations of the other two, in contrast, were inferred from measurements of anomalies in the planet's gravitational field... a single source--most likely an asteroid that was initially circling the sun in the same plane as Mars--created all five craters. At one point the asteroid passed close to the Red Planet... and was broken apart by the force of the planet's gravity. The resulting five pieces subsequently...

New Theory: Catastrophe Created Mars' Moons By Leonard David Senior Space Writer posted: 07:00 am ET 29 July 2003 PASADENA, California – The two moons of Mars – Phobos and Deimos – could be the byproducts of a breakup of a huge moon that once circled the red planet, according to a new theory. The capture of a large Martian satellite may have taken place during or shortly after the formation of the planet, with Phobos and Deimos now the surviving remnants. Origin of the two moons presents a longstanding puzzle to which one researcher proposed the new solution at...

PARIS (AFP) - A frozen sea surviving as blocks of pack ice may lie just beneath the surface of Mars, the New Scientist magazine said, citing observations from Europe's Mars Express spacecraft. AFP/ESA-HO/File Photo Images from the high resolution stereo camera on Mars Express showed of structures called plates that look similar to ice formations near Earth's poles. These plates could indicate the first discovery of a large body of water beyond Mars' polar ice caps, the review said. The team of researchers, led by John Murray of Britain's Open University, estimated the possible submerged ice sea at about 800...

Sept 21, 2009 — The Martians are singing How dry I am. Scientists have a new explanation for how Mars turned red without water...

'Wrecking ball' could break the ice on Mars 11:58 26 January 2006 NewScientist.com news service MAggie McKee Orbital images show what appear to be glacier-like features in the mid-latitudes of Mars (Image: A Nahm/Brown University) A plan to drop a quarter-tonne copper ball through Mars's atmosphere and study the ejecta it blasts away from the planet's surface on impact is to be proposed to NASA. The mission, called THOR, would test models suggesting the planet's tilt – and therefore its climate – swings through extreme changes every 50,000 years. Robotic landers and rovers have previously visited the Red Planet's equatorial...

March 5, 2005; Vol. 167, No. 10 , p. 149 Martian Landscaping: Spacecraft eyes evidence of a frozen sea Ron Cowen A flat region near the Red Planet's equator may hold a frozen ocean that was once as deep and big as the North Sea. The region's relatively craterless facade suggests that water gushed to the surface and froze recently, raising the possibility that life might exist today on or just beneath the surface, says Mars Express researcher John Murray. Last week, his team reported its analysis of images that were taken by the orbiting Mars Express spacecraft. In this...

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - Images relayed by a European space probe reveal the existence of a sea of ice close to the equator of Mars, scientists said Tuesday at a conference in the Netherlands. The existence of water or ice would significantly increase the chance that microscopic life may also be found on Mars. The evidence comes from photographs — not yet published — taken last year by the European Space Agency's Mars Express probe currently orbiting the red planet. Scientists have long theorized there was once water on Mars, and data from NASA (news - web sites)'s Mars Rovers has...

A chemical study of Martian meteorites implies that the planet has always been cold and was rarely above freezing.Writing in Science, researchers have been able to determine the maximum temperature the rock experienced. There is no evidence that it was ever warm, they say, as it records near surface conditions for four billion years. The water erosional features seen on Mars must have been made during very brief periods, they conclude. Thermal historyAlthough the current average temperature at the Martian equator is about minus 55 Celsius, many scientists believe that the Red Planet was once warm enough for water...

A frozen sea, surviving as blocks of pack ice, may lie just beneath the surface of Mars, suggest observations from Europe's Mars Express spacecraft. The sea is just 5° north of the Martian equator and would be the first discovery of a large body of water beyond the planet's polar ice caps. Images from the High Resolution Stereo Camera on Mars Express show raft-like ground structures - dubbed "plates" - that look similar to ice formations near Earth's poles, according to an international team of scientists. But the site of the plates, near the equator, means that sunlight should have...

Radar images previously revealed thousands of buried glacier-like formations in the planet’s northern and southern hemispheres. That data has now been incorporated into computer models of ice flow to determine the glaciers’ size and hence how much water they contain. “We have looked at radar measurements spanning 10 years back in time to see how thick the ice is and how it behaves. A glacier is, after all, a big chunk of ice and it flows and gets a form that tells us something about how soft it is. We then compared this with how glaciers on Earth behave and...

Images reveal 'sea of ice' near Mars' equator Associated Press AMSTERDAM, Netherlands — Images relayed by a European space probe reveal the existence of a sea of ice close to the equator of Mars, scientists said Tuesday at a conference in the Netherlands. The existence of water or ice would significantly increase the chance microscopic life may also be found on Mars. The evidence comes from photographs - not yet published - taken last year by the European Space Agency's Mars Express probe currently orbiting the red planet. Scientists have long theorized there was once water on Mars and data...