What’s the latest buzz about the red planet?
Huge crater on Mars ’solves red planet’s two-faced riddle’
A giant crater made by an asteroid or comet is the reason Mars is so lopsided, scientists have revealed.
The impact gouged out a hole 5,200 miles across and 6,500 miles long, leaving a basin covering 40 per cent of the red planet, researchers reported in the journal Nature.
The depression is the size of the combined areas of Asia, Europe and Australia, which makes it by far the largest crater in the solar system.
In 1984 scientists proposed an impact had caused the two-faced appearance of Mars with two strikingly different kinds of terrain in its northern and southern hemispheres.
This fell into disfavor because the ‘Borealis Basin’ didn’t seem to fit the expected round shape
However, the latest three studies said some of the basin’s edges have been erased by volcanic activity.
“We haven’t proved the giant-impact hypothesis, but I think we’ve shifted the tide,” said Jeffrey Andrews-Hanna, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
It appears the crater held an ocean in the early days of the planet, before Mars lost so much of its atmosphere and the water either sublimated away or froze beneath the surface.
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Scientists Find First Physical Evidence Mars Could Support Life
Scientists with the US space agency NASA appear to have finally found what they were seeking when they sent Phoenix millions of kilometers to the Red planet.
When the lander analyzed soil it had scooped up two weeks ago, water vapor was released when the lander heated the dirt to over 538 degrees centigrade.
Sam Kovanis is lead chemist with the Phoenix Mars project at the University of Arizona.
“This is the first wet chemical analysis on the Martian soil and any other planet besides Earth, and we were all flabbergasted with the data we got back,” said Sam Kovanis.
To the surprise of scientists, the soil was not too acidic to sustain life. In fact, Kovanis says it appears to contain enough minerals that make Earth bound plants flourish.
“We basically have found what appears to be the requirements, the nutrients, to support life, whether past, present or future, the sort of soil you have there, the type of soil you’d probably have in your backyard, alkaline, you might be able to grow asparagus in it really well, strawberries not very well,” he said. “And again, this is one more piece of evidence showing that the soil’s out there by some sort of liquid water action in the history of Mars.”
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Scientists Find First Physical Evidence Mars Could Support Life
Scientists say an analysis of a soil sample by the Mars Lander Phoenix shows that Mars could support life. VOA’s Jessica Berman reports.
Scientists with the U.S. space agency NASA appear to have finally found what they were seeking when they sent Phoenix millions of kilometers to the Red planet.
When the Lander analyzed soil it had scooped up two weeks ago, water vapor was released when the Lander heated the dirt to over 538 degrees centigrade.
Sam Kovanis is lead chemist with the Phoenix Mars project at the University of Arizona.
“This is the first wet chemical analysis on the Martian soil and any other planet besides Earth, and we were all flabbergasted with the data we got back,” said Sam Kovanis.
To the surprise of scientists, the soil was not too acidic to sustain life. In fact, Kovanis says it appears to contain enough minerals that make Earth bound plants flourish.
NASA spacecraft reveals largest crater in solar system
New analysis of Mars’ terrain using NASA spacecraft observations reveals what appears to be by far the largest impact crater ever found in the solar system, the U.S. space agency announced on Wednesday.
NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Global Surveyor have provided detailed information about the elevations and gravity of the Red Planet’s northern and southern hemispheres.
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Phoenix Mars Lander Confirms Frozen Water On Red Planet
Scientists relishing confirmation of water ice near the surface beside NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander anticipate even bigger discoveries from the robotic mission in the weeks ahead.
“It is with great pride and a lot of joy that I announce today that we have found proof that this hard bright material is really water ice and not some other substance,” said Phoenix Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson, during a Friday news briefing to announce the confirmation of water ice.
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