Astronomy, features and articles | Educational Science

Mar 14, 2023

Bizarre sand dunes on Mars are 'almost perfectly circular,' and scientists don't know why

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has captured stunning images of almost perfectly round sand dunes on the surface of the Red Planet. While sand dunes of all shapes and sizes are common on Mars, circular dunes like these are a rare sight. The dunes appear as slightly asymmetrical splodges in...

Apr 24, 2023

NASA's Perseverance rover loses its hitchhiking 'pet rock' after more than a year together on Mars

After more than a year together on the Red Planet, NASA's Perseverance rover and its hitchhiking pet rock have finally parted ways. The stone had been lodged in one of the rover's wheels for more than half of its mission on Mars. Perseverance accidentally picked up the pet rock in...

Apr 26, 2023

1st-ever close-up photo of Mars' moon Deimos reveals the Red Planet's violent past

The United Arab Emirates' Martian orbiter Hope just provided a striking new view of Deimos, one of Mars' two small moons. According to findings presented at the European Geosciences Union meeting this week, the observations from a flyby on March 10 indicate that Deimos is made of the same materials...

May 2, 2023

China's malfunctioning Mars rover may have found evidence of recent water on the Red Planet

Mars may have had liquid water on its surface as recently as 400,000 years ago, data from China's Zhurong rover suggests. Researchers used three of the craft's instruments to sample sand dunes from Mars' Utopia Planitia, a low-lying region in the northern hemisphere. In the region's' distinct, salty cracks, researchers...

May 12, 2023

Bizarre Martian 'book' spotted by NASA's Curiosity rover

NASA's Curiosity rover snapped an intriguing picture of a tiny Martian rock that looks surprisingly like a fossilized book on the surface of the Red Planet. The rover captured the image of the peculiar book-like rock on April 15 — the 3,800th Martian day, or sol, of its mission —...

May 31, 2023

How to watch Mars photobomb the buzzing Beehive Cluster of stars this week

Mars is about to spend two nights moving across the Beehive Cluster, one of the most spectacular open clusters of stars in the night sky. An open cluster is a loosely bound group of stars that have formed together; these clusters are commonly found in spiral galaxies such as the...

Jun 16, 2023

NASA's Curiosity rover snaps extremely detailed 'postcard' of Martian landscape after waking up from a 'brain-boosting nap'

NASA's Curiosity rover recently snapped a stunningly detailed postcard of the Martian landscape, showing the sunlight shifting between morning and afternoon. The wandering robot beamed the picturesque scene back to Earth shortly after waking up from a brain boosting nap. The rover captured the memento April 8, or Sol 3,794...

Jul 4, 2023

Mars helicopter Ingenuity phones home, breaking 63-day silence

The Ingenuity Mars helicopter's two-month silent stretch is over. Ingenuity got in touch with its handlers on June 28 via its robotic partner, the Perseverance rover, NASA officials announced on Friday, June 30. It was the first such communication since April 26, when the 4-pound (1.8 kilograms) chopper went dark...

Jul 12, 2023

Mars had an extreme climate shift 400,000 years ago, Chinese rover finds before its demise

China's Zhurong Mars rover has found evidence of a dramatic shift in Mars' climate 400,000 years ago, in the form of dark ridges laid on top of bright dunes that ripple across the sands of Utopia Planitia, which the rover is exploring. Scientists led by Li Chunlai from the National...

Jul 17, 2023

'Building blocks of life' discovered on Mars in 10 different rock samples

NASA's Perseverance rover has found a diverse menagerie of organic molecules in a Martian crater, a new study reports. Organic compounds are molecules composed of carbon, and often include other elements such as hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus and sulfur. Previously, scientists had detected several types of organic molecules of Martian...

Jul 26, 2023

Mars rover is spying on the sun's far side to hunt for hidden, dangerous sunspots

In their quest to identify and track potentially dangerous sunspots hidden on the far side of the sun, scientists have turned to an unlikely ally: NASA's Perseverance rover on Mars. Normally, the far side of the sun remains hidden from us and our space telescopes, which are positioned in orbit...

Aug 10, 2023

Mars is spinning faster, and scientists aren't sure why

Like an ice skater tucking their arms for an elegant spin, the planet Mars appears to be rotating slightly faster with each passing year. In a paper published June 14 in the journal Nature, astronomers used data from NASA's InSight mission to show that the Red Planet's spin is accelerating...

Aug 17, 2023

Bizarre polygons on Mars' surface hint that alien life on Red Planet was possible

A patchwork of well-preserved ancient mud cracks on the Martian surface hints that past extraterrestrial life on Mars was possible, a new study reveals. In 2021, NASA's Curiosity rover snapped pictures of the polygonal shapes on the slopes of Mount Sharp, a peak that stands 3 miles (5 kilometers) high...

Aug 25, 2023

Just 22 people are needed to colonize Mars — as long as they are the right personality type, study claims

Only 22 people are needed to create a colony on Mars, an optimistic new study suggests. However, not everyone agrees, and some experts think many more people would be needed to create a lasting human presence on the Red Planet. In the study, which was uploaded to the pre-print database...

Oct 3, 2023

15 Martian objects that aren't what they seem

Humans have been seeing strange things on the surface of Mars for centuries. Perhaps it's because, other than Earth, Mars is the closest thing in the solar system to a habitable planet, or perhaps it's simply because it's close enough to get a pretty good look at. Either way, Earthlings...