Life On Mars Theory Goes Up In A Puff: Scientists Find Methane Gas Would Make Planet Poisonous

Are we alone? Scientists believed methane gas on Mars was proof of life on the planet - but now that theory could be wrong

From The Daily Mail:

The discovery of seasonal plumes of methane on Mars was embraced as evidence of life on the red planet.

With most of the methane on Earth produced by living organisms, the Nasa finding earlier this year was a tantalising sign we may not be alone in the universe.

But alas, it now seems it could actually be the opposite.

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China's First Mars Orbiter In Russia For Launch: State Media

Image: Yinghuo-1, the 110-kilogramme (242-pound) Chinese satellite.

From Space Daily:

China's first satellite to probe Mars has been transported to Russia for a launch later this year, state media reported Thursday.

Yinghuo-1, the 110-kilogramme (242-pound) Chinese satellite, is scheduled to be launched along with Russia's "Phobos Explorer" aboard a Zenit rocket in October after final testing, the Beijing News said.

After entering Mars' orbit -- 10 to 11 months later -- the orbiter will probe the Martian space environment, with a special focus on what happened to the water that appears to have once been abundant on the planet's surface.

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Martian Methane Mystery Deepens

The Martian surface is very hostile to organics say scientists

From The BBC:

Methane on Mars is being produced and destroyed far faster than on Earth, according to analysis of recent data.

Scientists in Paris used a computer climate model for the Red Planet to simulate observations made from Earth.

It shows the gas is unevenly distributed in the Martian atmosphere and changes with the seasons.

The presence of methane on Mars is intriguing because its origin could either be life or geological activity - including volcanism.

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Has The Mystery Of The Mars 'Monolith' Been Solved?

How the experts see it: The original HiRISE satellite image supplied to Mail Online by the University of Arizona showing a close up of what appears to be a 'monolith' on Mars

From The Daily Mail:

An image of what appears to be a mysterious rocky monument on Mars has excited space junkies around the world.

The 'monolith', was snapped from 165miles away using a special high resolution camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

After being published on the website Lunar Explorer Italia, it set tongues wagging with space buffs questioning whether there was once life on the Red Planet.

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Europe's Mars Rover Slips To 2018

From The BBC:

Europe's flagship robotic rover mission to Mars now looks certain to leave Earth in 2018, two years later than recently proposed, the BBC understands.

The ExoMars vehicle is intended to search the Red Planet for signs of past or present life.

The delay is the third for the mission originally planned to launch in 2011.

While the switch will disappoint many people, officials say the change will open up a greatly expanded programme of exploration at the Red Planet.

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The Wonder Of Mars In Its Seasonal Glory

These images of sand dunes in Proctor Crater were taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. NASA/JPL-CALTECH/UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA

From The Independent:

The astonishing diversity of the Red Planet's landscape is captured by the world's most powerful camera, reports Science Editor Steve Connor.

The most powerful camera that has ever been used to survey another planet is capturing spectacular pictures of the surface of Mars to reveal a rich tapestry of geological features. Located on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, a Nasa probe launched in 2005, the HiRise camera has already taken detailed images of the outlines of ancient extra-terrestrial seas and rivers – the first unambiguous evidence that shorelines once existed on the Red Planet.

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The Truth About Water on Mars: 5 New Findings

Lesson 4: The Lack of Perchlorate Streaks Contradicts

Evidence of Liquid Water Deposits Underground

From Popular Mechanics:

In its few months of roaming the polar area on Mars last year, the Phoenix Lander found water ice beneath the red planet's surface and snow in the atmosphere. But for those hoping that life once existed on Mars—or still might—liquid water would be the crown jewel. While Phoenix died this past November as the winter brought on shorter and colder days, project leader Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, along with a number of colleagues from NASA's Jet Propulsion lab and universities all over the world, have spent the intervening months confirming those early finds and poring over the lander's massive amounts of data. Most of the attention is focused on whether Phoenix's data conclusively shows evidence that liquid water once flowed across Mars. There is a lot of complex analysis, but, in short, signs point to yes. Here are five lessons taken from today's analysis, which was published today in four separate studies in the journal Science.

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Stuck on Mars, Spirit Rover Does Science

From Yahoo News/Space:

The Mars rover Spirit is keeping scientists' spirits up by doing some science while it is stuck in soft soil on the red planet.

The rover has been immobile, trapped hub-deep since May 6. Engineers have replicated the landscape in lab back home and, using an identical rover model, tried to figure out what to do, so far to no avail.

A rock seen beneath Spirit in images from the camera on the end of the rover's arm may be touching Spirit's belly, NASA said in a statement today. It appears to be a loose rock not bearing the rover's weight.

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Not Space Junk Yet: Mars Rovers Carry On Despite Age, Ailments

From McClatchy News:

WASHINGTON — In one of the most remarkable engineering feats of our time, the aging Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity are still taking orders and sending home pictures more than five years after they were supposed to turn into slabs of space junk.

Opportunity is still rolling along, but Spirit is hung up on a rock and may be reaching the end of its travels. The rovers' masters at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., hope they can nurse either or both of them through another harsh Martian winter.

"I'm very attached to them," said John Callas, the rover project manager. "They exhibit human-like qualities. They have trials and tribulations. Like aging humans, they've got arthritic joints, they forget things, their vision is not what it used to be. When something's not right, you get that sinking feeing in your stomach.''

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University Of Colorado Team Finds Definitive Evidence For Ancient Lake On Mars

This is reconstructed landscape showing the Shalbatana lake on Mars as it may have looked roughly 3.4 billion years ago. Data used in reconstruction are from NASA and the European Space Agency. Credit: Image credit: G. Di Achille, University of Colorado

From Eurekalert:

First unambiguous evidence for shorelines on the surface of Mars, say researchers.

A University of Colorado at Boulder research team has discovered the first definitive evidence of shorelines on Mars, an indication of a deep, ancient lake there and a finding with implications for the discovery of past life on the Red Planet.

Estimated to be more than 3 billion years old, the lake appears to have covered as much as 80 square miles and was up to 1,500 feet deep -- roughly the equivalent of Lake Champlain bordering the United States and Canada, said CU-Boulder Research Associate Gaetano Di Achille, who led the study. The shoreline evidence, found along a broad delta, included a series of alternating ridges and troughs thought to be surviving remnants of beach deposits.

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NASA Builds World's Largest Space Parachute For Martian Landing

Parachute Diameter: 52 feet. (Photograph by NASA).

From Popular Mechanics:

To survive the thin Martian atmosphere, the 2000-plus-lb. Mars Science Laboratory rover will depend on the largest space parachute ever built. Here’s how NASA’s next chute will work.

When the NASA Mars Science Laboratory rover lands on Mars in 2012, it will face a unique obstacle: With an Earth weight of nearly a ton (compared to about 400 pounds for previous Mars rovers) and a Mars weight of about 750 pounds, it is too massive for any existing space parachute. So to cushion its fall through the thin Martian atmosphere (which is less than 1 percent as dense as Earth’s), NASA engineers had to come up with something really big. The new parachute opens to a diameter of 52 feet, making it twice the size of any parachute ever flown beyond Earth.

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US, Europe Look To Partnership On Mars Exploration

This combination of images provided by NASA, right, and the European Space Agency, left, shows the Space Agency logos. For almost half a century, the United States has dominated the exploration of Mars from the first grainy black-and-white pictures of the craggy surface to the more recent discovery of ice. Now, budget woes are pushing NASA toward a joint exploration venture with Europe. By 2016, the U.S. may unite with the European Space Agency for future Mars trips — a move that would mark a significant shift for NASA. Details of such a union could come by the end of June 2009. (AP Photo/NASA, ESA)

From Yahoo News/AP:

LOS ANGELES – For almost half a century, the United States has dominated the exploration of Mars from the first grainy black-and-white pictures of the craggy surface to the more recent discovery of ice.

Now, budget woes are pushing NASA toward a joint exploration venture with Europe. By 2016, the U.S. may unite with the European Space Agency for future Mars trips — a move that would mark a significant shift for NASA.

Details of such a union could come by the end of this month.

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Nasa Rover Sinks Up To Wheel Hubs In Martian Dust... Now How To Get It Rolling Again?

The Spirit rover is stuck on the Home Plate - a plateau roughly 90m across within the Columbia Hills inside the Gusev crater

From The Daily Mail:

It's a familiar problem to drivers - you get stuck, your wheels are spinning and you need a tow rope to get you out.

But what happens when the stuck vehicle is the Spirit Rover on Mars nearly 36 million miles away?

Nasa's space exploration buggy ran into soft earth in May after crawling across the red planet for five years and sending back impressively detailed pictures from the surface.

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Russia's Dark Horse Plan to Get to Mars

Phobos, the larger of the two moons of Mars has many unknowns. For instance, what formed the grooves that run across its surface? Image: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Neukum)

From Discover:

The Fobos-Grunt mission might pave the way for humanity's first permanent space base—on Phobos, Mars' bizarre moon.

Mars has been nothing but bad luck for the Russians. They have launched 20 probes to the planet since 1960, and all either failed or suffered from severe technical problems. But soon—as early as this October—Russia will attempt to reverse its fortunes with one of the most ambitious unmanned space missions ever.

Instead of aiming straight for Mars, the Russians are going after Phobos, the larger of its two little satellites and one of the oddest objects around. Their probe, called Fobos-Grunt (“Phobos soil” in Russian), will not only land on Phobos but also scoop up some samples of the surface and send them to Earth. Understanding Phobos could tell us a lot about the early history of the solar system. “It may give us clues to the formation of Earth’s moon and the moons of the other planets, and the role played by asteroid impacts in shaping the terrestrial [rocky] planets,” says Alexander Zakharov of the Moscow-based Space Research Institute and chief scientist for Fobos-Grunt. Even more important, this mission could lay the groundwork for an innovative strategy for exploring—and even colonizing—Mars itself.

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Huge Mars Region Shaped by Water, Rover Mission Finds

A false-color image shows Cape St. Vincent, a feature of Mars's massive Victoria Crater. After a dangerous descent into the crater, the Mars rover Opportunity has shown that the red planet once had a network of underground water spread across an area the size of Oklahoma, scientists announced in May 2009. Photograph courtesy Steven W. Squyres

From National Geographic:

Shifting sand dunes on ancient Mars once concealed a network of underground water spread across an area the size of Oklahoma, according to new findings from NASA's Mars rover Opportunity.

In 2004 Opportunity had spotted minerals and blueberry-shaped rocks indicative of ancient groundwater in the Martian crater Endurance.

The robotic explorer has now found similar signs of past water in Victoria, a crater some 3.5 miles (6 kilometers) away.

Opportunity also spotted unique rock layers in the sides of Victoria Crater, which are likely the petrified remnants of ancient sand dunes.

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Mars Robots May Have Destroyed Evidence Of Life

Photo: This image was taken by NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander's Surface Stereo Imager on June 5, 2008, the eleventh day after landing. It shows the robotic arm scoop, with a soil sample, poised over the partially open door of the lander's oven (Image: NASA / JPL-Caltech / University of Arizona / Texas A&M University)

From New Scientist:

HAVE Mars landers been destroying signs of life? Instead of identifying chemicals that could point to life, NASA's robot explorers may have been toasting them by mistake.

In 1976, many people's hopes of finding life on Mars collapsed when the twin Viking landers failed to detect even minute quantities of organic compounds - the complex, carbon-containing molecules that are central to life as we know it. "It contributed, in my opinion, to the fact that there were no additional [US lander] missions to Mars for 20 years," says Jeff Moore of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California.

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Cold And Wet: The Latest Theory About Mars

Rhythmic bedding in sedimentary bedrock within Becquerel crater on Mars is suggested by the patterns in this image from Nasa's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter released last December. Reuters

From The Independent:

Mars may have once been both cold and wet, researchers said today, suggesting a freezing Martian landscape could still have produced water needed to sustain life.

There has been debate over the issue because with some researchers believing water likely formed many features of the planet's landscape and others pointing to evidence indicating that early Mars was cold with temperatures well below the freezing point of water.

Using a computer model, Alberto Fairen of Universidad Autonoma in Madrid and colleagues showed that both could have been possible because fluids containing dissolved minerals would have remained liquid at temperatures well below 273 degrees Kelvin - the freezing point of pure water.

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Mars Rover May Not Escape Sand Trap For Weeks

Photo: Engineers will try to recreate the terrain that Spirit is stuck in at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, where similar tests were performed in 2005 (above) to help extricate Opportunity from a sand trap (Image: NASA/JPL)

From New Scientist:

NASA's Spirit Mars rover is so deeply stuck in the sand that its belly may be resting on underlying rocks, which could hamper efforts to extricate it. Mission members say it will probably take weeks before they make any headway in freeing the rover.

Spirit began to have trouble driving around 1 May, says John Callas, the rover project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Its wheels are now buried about halfway in the soil, which is so loose "it's like flour", says Callas. Mission managers have temporarily stopped trying to drive the rover as they consider how best to proceed.

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NASA May Abandon Plans For Moon Base

Image: Instead of building a permanent lunar base, NASA may send astronauts on short 'sorties' or excursions (Illustration: NASA)

From New Scientist:

NASA will probably not build an outpost on the moonMovie Camera as originally planned, the agency's acting administrator, Chris Scolese, told lawmakers on Wednesday. His comments also hinted that the agency is open to putting more emphasis on human missions to destinations like Mars or a near-Earth asteroid.

NASA has been working towards returning astronauts to the moon by 2020 and building a permanent base there. But some space analysts and advocacy groups like the Planetary Society have urged the agency to cancel plans for a permanent moon base, carry out shorter moon missions instead, and focus on getting astronauts to Mars.

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Women Excluded From 'Mars Mission' Crew To Prevent Sexual Tension Ruining 105-Day Voyage

Five of the crew during survival training near Star City, Russia.
They will live together for 105 days in cramped conditions.

From The Daily Mail:

Today an all-male crew of six space enthusiasts were shut inside the Mars-500 'spaceship' in Moscow, for a simulated 105-day mission.

The purpose of the reality TV-like mission is to study the psychological and physiological effects of isolation on stress levels, sleep quality, mood and immunity levels.

The experiment paves the way for a 500 day mission which will completely replicate the conditions of a real mission to Mars.

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