Scientists from around the world are gathering this week in California to take stock of the state of science from Mars and discuss goals for the next steps in exploration of the Red Planet. In the spirit of Mars 10, formally known as the 10th International Conference on Mars, here are 10 recent significant events that got scientists talking:
1. An International Science Fleet at Mars
July 2024: Nine spacecraft are now operating at Mars – two surface rovers and seven orbiters. NASA’s fleet includes the Perseverance and Curiosity rovers, and orbiters MAVEN, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and Mars Odyssey. ESA (European Space Agency) operates Mars Express and the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter. Both China and the United Arab Emirates also have spacecraft studying Mars from orbit.
2. Curiosity Discovers Mysterious Surge in Methane – Which Then Vanishes
June 2019: NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover found a surprising result: the largest amount of methane ever measured during the mission. “The methane mystery continues,” said Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity’s project scientist. “We’re more motivated than ever to keep measuring and put our brains together to figure out how methane behaves in the Martian atmosphere.”
3. Curiosity Discovers Evidence of Ancient Wave Ripples From a Lake Bottom
February 2023: NASA’s Curiosity rover team was surprised to discover the mission’s clearest evidence yet of ancient water ripples that formed within lakes in an area they expected to be much drier.
4. InSight Detects First Quake on Another Planet
April 2019: NASA’s Mars InSight lander measured and recorded for the first time ever a “marsquake.” “InSight’s first readings carry on the science that began with NASA’s Apollo missions,” said InSight Principal Investigator Bruce Banerdt. “We’ve been collecting background noise up until now, but this first event officially kicks off a new field: Martian seismology!”
5. InSight Provides First View of Mars’ Deep Interior
July 2021: NASA’s InSight spacecraft’s seismometer revealed details about the planet’s deep interior for the first time, including confirmation that the planet’s center is molten.
6. InSight Finds Stunning Impact on Mars – and Ice
October 2022: NASA’s InSight felt the ground shake during the impact while cameras aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spotted the yawning new crater surrounded by boulder-sized chunks of ice from space.
7. Opportunity Rover Comes to an End After Nearly 15 Years
July 2021: One of the most successful and enduring feats of interplanetary exploration, NASA’s Opportunity rover mission ended after almost 15 years exploring the surface of Mars and helping lay the groundwork for NASA’s return to the Red Planet.
8. Massive Dust Storm Spreads Across Mars
July 2018: For scientists watching the Red Planet from NASA’s orbiters, summer 2018 was a windfall. “Global” dust storms, where a runaway series of storms create a dust cloud so large they envelop the planet, only appear every six to eight years (that’s 3-4 Mars years). In June 2018, one of these dust events rapidly engulfed the planet. Scientists first observed a smaller-scale dust storm on May 30. By June 20, it had gone global.
- “’Storm Chasers’ on Mars Searching for Dusty Secrets”
9. NASA Maps Water Ice on Mars for Use by Future Astronauts
October 2023: The map could help the agency decide where the first astronauts to the Red Planet should land. The more available water, the less missions will need to bring.
10. Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Images Used to Make Massive Interactive Globe of Mars
April 2023: Cliffsides, impact craters, and dust devil tracks are captured in mesmerizing detail in a new mosaic of the Red Planet composed of 110,000 images from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
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