Latest Jean-Pierre Bibring Stories

The classic technique for assessing the history of a rocky planet's geology is to count craters. On average, areas with longer exposure to space have had more impacts, and therefore more craters. By counting craters, scientists have broken the geologic history of Mars into three eras: Noachian (warm and wet), Hesperian (volcanic), and the present-day Amazonian (cold and dry). Following Earthly practice, each era is named for the location where the characteristic terrain was first...

By Irene KlotzHOUSTON (Reuters) - To learn if Mars ever supported life, researchers should look underground, a scientist presenting results of the Mars Express mission said at a conference this week.The European Space Agency's orbiter has mapped almost the entire planet for minerals that bear chemical fingerprints of past encounters with water.Less than 1 percent of the planet's surface bears signs of hydrated minerals, said Jean-Pierre Bibring, the lead investigator for the Mars Express...