NASAs Mars 2020 mission is expected to go ahead as planned next month despite coronavirus setbacks that could have led to a two year delay. The rover mission is scheduled to launch on July 20 at 14:15 BST from Cape Canaveral in Florida and will land on the Red Planet in February 2021. The rover’s … Read more
European Space Agency enlists Airbus to help it build a Mars rover called ‘Fetch’ that will find and retrieve rock samples on the Red Planet The Airbus firm has won the next phase of the contract to develop the rover It will travel more than 9 miles across the red planet to pick up rock … Read more
Elon Musk revealed last year that SpaceX would one-day develop floating ‘spaceports’ to launch its Starship rocket to the moon and Mars – and it seems that time has finally come. A job posting on the firm’s site lists a new position for an Offshore Operations Engineer who would ‘work as part of a team … Read more
Glowing green oxygen is detected for the first time in Mars’ atmosphere that forms from sunlight interacting with atoms and air molecules ESA’s ExoMars orbiter has been circling Mars since October of 2016 The orbiter has spotted glowing green emissions in the planet’s atmosphere Astronomers noted that the Earth has the same glowing emissions The … Read more
Green lights, red planet: Glow similar to the Aurora Borealis is detected around Mars for the first time Excitation of oxygen causes the primarily green colour of our polar aurorae However, they also cause a thin green glow around 56 miles above the ground Experts said that Mars should have a similar glow — but … Read more
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) will launch its first ever mission to to Mars next month. Called Amal, meaning ‘hope’, the mission will take off from the remote Japanese island of Tanegashima on July 15. It will be seven months before it reaches Mars and starts orbiting the planet. The 3,000lb (1,350kg) craft will complete … Read more
China’s first mission to Mars is set to launch in July or August as the country sprints to become a major space power in the global race, the programme director has revealed. The Tianwen-1 spacecraft will be carried by a Long March-5 rocket this summer and is expected to reach the red planet in February, … Read more
The search for life on other planets has captivated mankind for decades. But the reality could be a little less like the Hollywood blockbusters, scientists have revealed. They say if there was life on the red planet, it probably will present itself as fossilized bacteria – and have proposed a new way to look for … Read more
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has long believed blasting Mars with nuclear warheads would terraform the planet, but a Russian space official is questing the billionaire’s ambitious plan. A Twitter user shared Roscosmos executive director Alexander Bloshenko statement that Musk would need 10,000 maximum payload nuclear missiles based on modern-day technology to carry out the proposal. … Read more
How important is the presence of liquid water? It is now widely believed that Mars holds a reasonably large volume of water. However, the surface of the planet is so cold, this water exists only as ice. In order for life to exist on a planet, many scientists believe it is essential for the world … Read more