Nasa, Life On Mars | featured news

Mars Rover Shows Planet Could Have Supported Life

Martian Rock Sample

NASA scientists say tests on a Mars rock show the planet could have supported primitive life. The analysis was done by the rover Curiosity, which drilled into the rock, crushed it and tested a tiny sample. The rover was the first spacecraft sent to Mars that could collect a sample from deep inside a rock.

 

Mars rover Curiosity finds proof Mars had water

Martian Rocks

The NASA rover Curiosity has beamed back pictures of bedrock that suggest a fast-moving stream, possibly waist-deep, once flowed on Mars -- a find that the mission's chief scientist called exciting.

Senh: These images look so Earth-like.

 

Uncertainty lingers about future Mars efforts

This week's arrival of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity set the stage for a potentially game-changing quest to learn whether the planet most like Earth ever had a shot at developing life, but follow-up missions exist only on drawing boards.

 

NASA launching `dream machine' to explore Mars

NASA launching `dream machine' to explore Mars

As big as a car and as well-equipped as a laboratory, NASA's newest Mars rover blows away its predecessors in size and skill. Nicknamed Curiosity and scheduled for launch on Saturday, the rover has a 7-foot arm tipped with a jackhammer and a laser to break through the Martian red rock. What really makes it stand out: It can analyze rocks and soil with unprecedented accuracy. "This is a Mars scientist's dream machine," said NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Ashwin Vasavada, the deputy project scientist. Once on the red planet, Curiosity will be on the lookout for organic, carbon-containing compounds. While the rover can't actually detect the presence of living organisms, scientists hope to learn from the $2.5 billion, nuclear-powered mission whether Mars has - or ever had - what it takes to nurture microbial life.

 

Possible life on Mars reexamined

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.

 

NASA wants mission to bring Martian rocks to Earth

NASA wants mission to bring Martian rocks to Earth

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

 

New images suggest an ancient Martian lake

Images taken by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show a 30-mile-long canyon and beach remnants surrounding a basin.

 

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