Mars | featured news

Towards the end of 2011 a large and hugely expensive robotic rover called Curiosity is due to blast off for Mars from Cape Canaveral. If it makes it safely to the planet’s surface in August 2012 one of the first things it will do is sniff the air. Its creators, back on Earth, will be straining to see if that air carries a whiff of methane.

Invoking the spirit of "Star Trek" in a scholarly article entitled "To Boldly Go," two scientists contend human travel to Mars could happen much more quickly and cheaply if the missions are made one-way. They argue that it would be little different from early settlers to North America, who left Europe with little expectation of return.

Jupiter and Mars aren't the only recent impact victims in our solar system. In two talks today at the Division for Planetary Sciences in Pasadena, California, astronomers report that a small asteroid located in the inner asteroid belt between those two planets took a major hit early last year.

Thirty-four years after NASA's Viking missions to Mars sent back results interpreted to mean there was no organic material - and consequently no life - on the planet, new research has concluded that organic material was found after all.

New images of an ancient crater on Mars look just like a bootprint -- and the high res pics have failed to solve the age-old mystery for planetary scientists. If anything, the high-resolution images of the "Footprint Crater" -- otherwise known as Orcus Patera -- have puzzled Mars-watchers even further as to how the Red Planet was originally scarred with the 240-mile-long depression.

California 7th graders discovered this Martian pit feature at the center of the superimposed red square in this image while participating in a program that enables students to use the camera on NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter.

A vast ocean likely covered one-third of the surface of Mars some 3.5 billion years ago, according to a new study. While the notion of a large, ancient ocean on Mars has been repeatedly proposed and challenged over the past two decades, the research provides further support for the idea of a sustained sea on the Red Planet more than 3 billion years ...

An international team of researchers on Thursday launched a grueling simulation of a flight to Mars that will keep them locked in a cascade of ...

If NASA's exploration of Mars were summed up in a bumper sticker, it would read: "Follow the water."...

NASA is considering a plan to get around limited budgets set in Washington by stretching out missions to bring back samples from Mars, a researcher said on Wednesday.