Latest Climate of Mars Stories

SAN FRANCISCO—NASA scientists have discovered what might form some of the weirdest landscapes on Mars, winding channels carved into the Martian surface that scientists have dubbed "spiders," "lace" and "lizard skin." The unusual landscape features form in an area of Mars' south pole called cryptic terrain because it once defied explanation. But new observations from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, presented here today at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union,...

This summer, Mars suffered a titanic dust storm that engulfed the entire planet. The dust storm contributed to a temporary warming effect around Mars, which raised the temperature of the atmosphere by around 20-30°C.However, the surface temperature of the planet itself dropped. Imagine a dust cloud on Earth that started in the Sahara desert and grew to encompass our whole planet. Such a catastrophe would block sunlight from reaching the surface and plunge us into twilight for months. It...

Boulder, CO, USA -- Mars, like Earth, is a climate-fickle water planet. The main difference, of course, is that water on the frigid Red Planet is rarely liquid, preferring to spend almost all of its time traveling the world as a gas or churning up the surface as ice. That's the global picture literally and figuratively coming into much sharper focus as various Mars-orbiting cameras send back tomes of unprecedented super high-resolution imagery of ever vaster tracts of the planet's surface....

Thermodynamic studies of Martian clay soils suggest inconsistencies in theories of a thick carbon dioxide atmosphere, says a study in Nature.FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - A study of the thermodynamics of clays found on Mars suggests that little carbon dioxide could have been present during their formation, which contradicts a popular theory of the early Martian atmosphere and will send researchers looking for other explanations for clay formation.Vincent Chevrier of the University of Arkansas and...

Thanks to data from ESA's Mars Express mission, combined with models of the Martian climate, scientists can now suggest how the orbit of Mars around the Sun affects the deposition of water ice at the Martian South Pole.Early during the mission, the OMEGA instrument (Visible and Infrared Mineralogical Mapping Spectrometer) on board Mars Express had already found previously undetected perennial deposits of water-ice. They are sitting on top of million-year old layered terrains and provide...

The amount of water trapped in frozen layers over Mars' south polar region is equivalent to a liquid layer about 11 metres deep covering the planet.This new estimate comes from mapping the thickness of the dusty ice by the Mars Express radar instrument that has made more than 300 virtual slices through layered deposits covering the pole. The radar sees through icy layers to the lower boundary, which in places is as deep as 3.7 kilometres below the surface.  "The south polar layered...

By ALICIA CHANG Associated Press Video: Possible Water Found on Mars LOS ANGELES -- New photographs from space suggest that water occasionally flows on the frigid surface of Mars, raising the tantalizing possibility that it is hospitable to life, scientists reported Wednesday. The new images, taken by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor before it lost contact with Earth, do not actually show flowing water. Rather, they show changes in craters that provide the strongest evidence yet that water...

LOS ANGELES -- After decades of scouring images of Mars for signs of water, scientists believe they have found stunning evidence that water may even now be flowing through the Red Planet's frigid surface.The news excited scientists who hunt for extraterrestrial life. If the finding is confirmed, they say, all the ingredients favorable for life on Mars would be in place: liquid water and a stable heat source."This is a squirting gun for water on Mars," said Kenneth Edgett, a...

By ALICIA CHANG LOS ANGELES - New photographs from space suggest that water occasionally flows on the frigid surface of Mars, raising the tantalizing possibility that the Red Planet is hospitable to life, scientists reported Wednesday. The new images, taken by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor before it lost contact with Earth, do not actually show flowing water. Rather, they show changes in craters that provide the strongest evidence yet that water coursed through them as recently as several...

By ALICIA CHANG LOS ANGELES - A provocative new study of photographs taken from orbit suggests that liquid water flowed on the surface of Mars as recently as several years ago, raising the possibility that the Red Planet could harbor an environment favorable to life. The crisp images taken by the Mars Global Surveyor do not directly show water. Rather, they show apparently recent changes in surface features that provide the strongest evidence yet that water even now sometimes flows on the...