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Mars Helicopter Testing Enters Final Phase

Mars Helicopter

NASA's Mars Helicopter flight demonstration project has passed a number of key tests with flying colors. In 2021, the small, autonomous helicopter will be the first vehicle in history to attempt to establish the viability of heavier-than-air vehicles flying on another planet.

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How Webb Will Explore Mars

Mars Imaged by Hubble

In the summer of 2018, a dust storm blanketed the entire planet Mars. From the surface, the Sun would have looked like tiny orb in a murky brown sky.

InSight Images Clouds on Mars

NASA's InSight used its Instrument Context Camera (ICC) beneath the lander's deck to image these drifting clouds at sunset

Curiosity Finds a Clay Cache On Mars

NASA's Curiosity rover has confirmed that the region on Mars it's exploring, called the "clay-bearing unit," is well deserving of its name.

Strange Martian Mineral Deposit Likely Sourced From Volcanic Explosions

Ashfall from ancient volcanic explosions is the likely source of a strange mineral deposit near the landing site for NASA's next Mars rover, a new study finds.

Mars 2020 Mission Drops In on Death Valley

On a test flight in Death Valley, California, an Airbus helicopter carried an engineering model of the Lander Vision System (LVS) that will help guide NASA's next Mars mission to a safe touchdown on the Red Planet.

On Mars, Sands Shift To A Different Drum

Wind has shaped the face of Mars for millennia, but its exact role in piling up sand dunes, carving out rocky escarpments or filling impact craters has eluded scientists until now.

How The Sun Pumps Out Water From Mars Into Space

Russian and German physicists have offered an explanation for the new data obtained by Martian satellites, capturing the "escape" of hydrogen atoms from the upper Martian atmosphere into outer space.

Why This Martian Full Moon Looks Like Candy

For the first time, NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter has caught the Martian moon Phobos during a full moon phase.

Mars Winds Clean InSight's Solar Planels

The same winds that blanket Mars with dust can also blow that dust away. Catastrophic dust storms have the potential to end a mission, as with NASA's Opportunity rover.

InSight Captures Sunrise and Sunset on Mars

A camera on the spacecraft's robotic arm snapped the photos on April 24 and 25, the 145th Martian day, or sol, of the mission.

Dartmouth's Mars Greenhouse Wins 2019 NASA BIG Idea Challenge

A team from Dartmouth's Thayer School of Engineering that designed a greenhouse for Mars has been announced the winner of the 2019 NASA BIG Idea Challenge today at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.

InSight Lander Captures Audio of First Likely Mars Quake

NASA's Mars InSight lander has measured and recorded for the first time ever a likely "marsquake."

Mars 2020 Spacecraft Undergoes Assembly

For the past few months, the clean room floor in High Bay 1 at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, has been covered in parts, components and test equipment for the Mars 2020 spacecraft, scheduled for launch toward the Red Planet in July of 2020.

The Paradoxes of the Late Hesperian Mars Ocean

The long-standing debate on the existence of ancient oceans on Mars has been recently revived by evidence for tsunami resurfacing events that date from the Late Hesperian geological era.

Curiosity Captured Two Solar Eclipses on Mars

When NASA's Curiosity Mars rover landed in 2012, it brought along eclipse glasses. The solar filters on its Mast Camera (Mastcam) allow it to stare directly at the Sun.

Mysterious Martian Methane Bursts Confirmed

Martian methane releases are rare, episodic, and often debated, but scientists have discovered evidence of a methane emission in June 2013, which constitutes the first confirmation of a methane release on Mars.