colonization of mars
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Recent Solar Outbursts Trigger Dramatic Auroras on Mars
A recent outburst from the Sun sent a strong blast of charged particles and radiation towards Mars, allowing scientists to get a rare glimpse at how these events unfold on planets other than Earth. NASA’s Curiosity rover captured the aftermath of a solar storm on the Martian surface, using its navigation cameras to record as…
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NASA’s Mars Missions Hit Two-Week Snooze Button Because Sun
For the next two weeks, NASA will not be sending commands to its fleet of Martian rovers, orbiters, and spacecraft until the Sun moves out of the way. The Mars solar conjunction is from November 11 to 25, a period that occurs every two years during which Earth and the Red Planet are on opposite…
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MOXIE, NASA’s Oxygen-Producing Experiment on Mars, Ends Operations
On April 20, 2021, the spiritedly-named MOXIE experiment on Mars extracted 5 grams of oxygen from the Martian atmosphere, demonstrating a potential future capability of an established human presence on the Red Planet—and in other atmospheres besides Earth’s, for that matter. “By proving this technology in real-world conditions, we’ve come one step closer to a…
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Evidence of Changing Winds on Mars Points to a Major Transformation 400,000 Years Ago
Recent evidence gathered by China’s Zhurong rover points to a dramatic climate shift on Mars—a finding that could have a significant impact on our understanding of Earth’s climate evolution. China’s Zhurong Mars rover collected rare evidence from the planet’s sand dunes that show a change in the direction of the wind, eroding the dunes’ crescent…