News Stories relating to "mars"

After robots get through exploring Mars, humans will be next. How will we get enough air and water and produce the power we need? Some researchers have suggested using weapons-grade plutonium for the job, but NASA's Humboldt Mandell says, "?To think about taking the most deadly element that's known to humanity, like plutonium, and mucking up...

At 11:53 PM EST Saturday night NASA's Spirit Mars Lander returned tones indicating that it had landed and was upright and functioning, after a multi-million mile journey from Earth to Mars. Two out of three Mars missions have failed, most recently the British Beagle 2 mission, which has not yet reported back after its landing.

With Mars...

The planet Mars may have had life forms vastly different from Earth's, that emerged from deep beneath the Martian surface billions of years ago, and are based on DNA, genes and proteins that are unlike anything found on Earth.

NASA's Christopher McKay says if there was life on early Mars (even if there isn?t any there now), it means...

On August 27, Mars will be closer to Earth than it has been since prehistoric times. To scientists, this is a chance to send satellites into space to take pictures of the planet. To Hindu priests in India, it means doomsday, because Mars, or "Mangal," the planet of war in Hindu scriptures, is associated with fire. "Mars will bring terrible...

As the European spacecraft the Beagle (named after Darwin's ship) heads for Mars, scientists are looking at the results of an earlier search for life on Mars, by the NASA Viking landings in 1976. Former mission scientist Gil Levin says he has evidence proving that we really did find signs of life on Mars during that mission.

Biology...

There's still controversy over whether the 3.9 billion-year-old Martian meteorite ALH84001, found in Antarctica on December 1984, contains fossilized Martian bacteria. If it does, it's possible that life came to Earth from Mars and that we are all, in effect, Martians. Some scientists think the fossils formed underwater, in shallow Martian seas...

The ongoing debate about whether there could be life on Mars has gotten some positive input. When scientists first discovered there's ice on the surface, they were elated, because water means life. There could be frozen bacteria under the ice that's still alive or, even if it's dead, could give clues to past life on the planet. Then they...

Is there evidence of life on the moon or on Mars? While NASA downplays these provocative questions, new evidence keeps coming up?so they never quite go away. Astronomer James O'Meara looked at the moon through his telescope and saw what he calls the Cave, which seems to have a spiral pattern with a central cavity that reminds him of the homes...

After the exciting news that there may be water on Mars, Australian geologist Nick Hoffman says that the gullies near the south pole that form as the ice cap retreats in the spring are made by gaseous carbon dioxide, not water, meaning there may be no life on Mars. He thinks there's no liquid?frozen or otherwise?on Mars at all. This means there...

Mars is coming closer to the Earth, and will be easier to see, than it has been since Neanderthal times. It will slowly appear to grow larger and brighter until at 5:51 am EST on August 27, 2003, Mars will be within 34,646,488 miles of Earth, the closest it's come to our planet in 73,000 years. Whenever Mars is close to the Earth, the number of...

If privately funded excursions to Mars become common, the planet could become the new lawless frontier, as adventurers stake claims to land and minerals before official government expeditions arrive. This is bound to happen if the current trend continues. Governments are trying to avoid putting money into space exploration and private business...

Microbes may be able to survive on Mars. This means that life could have existed there in the past, and may be there today, hidden under a crust of ice. While microbes aren't as exciting as discovering a Martian civilization, it does mean that microbes could have traveled on a meteorite from Mars to Earth, seeding life here?meaning we are...

Scientists who claim there could never have been life on Mars have always pointed out that liquid water is needed for sophisticated life forms to exist. Even when it was discovered that water is trapped on Mars underground or in ice, the skeptics said only bacteria could survive such conditions. Now new images of the planet reveal Ma'adim...

If there are other planets like Earth out there, at least one in three probably harbors life, according to Charles Lineweaver and Tamara Davis of the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. If life can arise on planets unlike ours, then the odds on finding life are even more favorable.

We can get important knowledge from the...