Science Space Solar System Mars NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter snaps 100,000th image A high school student suggested the steep sand dunes of Syrtis Major for the milestone image. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) officially went into service above the Red Planet in November 2006. The spacecraft has since spent nearly 20 years circling Earth's closest neighbor, studying its geology and identifying icy evidence of a once watery world . After already sending back more than 450 terabits of data over the course of its ongoing mission, the orbiter recently passed a major milestone: its 100,000th image of the Martian surface.

Physicists finally know how much faster time moves on the Red Planet. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Tracking the first astronauts' visit to Mars won't be as simple as watching a clock or marking days off of a calendar. Thanks to relativity, time actually moves faster on the Red Planet than it does here on Earth. For years, scientists have wondered about the exact temporal difference between planets, but physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) finally have an answer.

They're rare events, but the results are dramatic. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Mars receives its fair share of cosmic collisions . With less than one percent the atmosphere as Earth, some meteoroids fail to burn up entirely before reaching the Red Planet's surface. When they do, they can usher dramatic changes to the barren Martian landscape that stretch for miles.

Science Space Solar System Mars Meet Blue and Gold: NASA's first twin satellites bound for Mars The ESCAPADE mission will help predict space weather for future crewed missions to the Red Planet. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. NASA is readying the first dual-satellite mission to another planet. Currently scheduled to launch no earlier than Sunday November 9 from Cape Canaveral, Florida, the Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (ESCAPADE) are a pair of identical spacecraft tasked with traveling to Mars . Once in the Red Planet's orbit, the spacecraft will create three-dimensional maps of our cosmic neighbor's upper atmosphere, ionosphere, and magnetic fields.

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Planetary scientists can now predict when the aurora will shine over our cosmic neighbor. An artist's impression of how the aurora might appear in the sky above the Perseverance rover. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Just like Earth, our cosmic neighbor Mars sometimes has auroras dance across its night sky. In March 2024, NASA's Perseverance Mars rover imaged visible-light auroras for the first time during a major solar flare and coronal mass ejection.

Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Don't let the appetizing description fool you. When planetary scientists say the interior of Mars resembles a rocky road brownie more than a piece of buttery shortbread, the tasty metaphor masks billions of years of geological violence. In a re-examination of previous observations collected by NASA's decommissioned InSight probe, researchers have discovered that the Martian mantle is embedded with ancient fragments measuring as much as 2.5 miles wide. The data is detailed in a study published on August 28 in Nature.

Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. When humans eventually set foot on Mars, they may have a four-legged companion by their side. But the dog accompanying them won't be a canine at all, but a quadruped robot designed to gather samples and keep astronauts on the Red Planet from twisting an ankle. Built with autonomous capability, it will be capable of operating independently of humans. Put another way, the Mars dog will walk off-leash.

NASA's Curiosity rover snapped a bizarre, coral-shaped rock on the surface of Mars, sparking fresh speculation about signs of ancient life on the Red Planet. The twisted, alien-like formation was sculpted by wind and time, according to NASA, which said it likely formed billions of years ago when water once flowed across the Martian surface. The images have taken the internet by storm, with some users claiming: 'Corals are true signs of ancient life forms along with the ancient rivers. This is a huge discovery!!' Another wrote on X: 'There's your Mars fossilized foreign life material evidence everybody's been asking for. That's obviously been there all along.'

Imagine a future where humans live in huge'space oases' on Mars – luxury indoor habitats made of heat-reflective material that grow their own food. Robots are sent into the vast Martian wilderness, where they explore without the risk of exhaustion, radiation poisoning or dust contamination. Enormous space stations and satellites are manufactured in orbit, AI is trusted to make critical decisions, and the whole solar system is connected by a vast internet network. While this sounds like science-fiction, the European Space Agency (ESA) hopes it will become a reality in just 15 years. In a new report, the agency – which represents more than 20 countries including the UK – outlines an ambitious vision for space exploration by 2040.