Topic: Mars Exploration
Top galleries, list articles, quizzes
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Beyond SpaceX: Five companies seeking to change space travel
During the past 10 years, Presidents George W. Bush and Obama have directed NASA to turn the job of transporting cargo and crew to the space station over to the private sector. As that process gathers pace, here is a list of the key players.
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Five places we might find life in our own solar system
Life on Earth occupies some bizarre places – pools of pitch, deep-sea hydrothermal vents, and lightless lakes buried under glaciers. While scientists hunt for hospitable planets circling other stars, the solar system has a few candidates. Here are five.
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David Foster Wallace's 10 favorite books
The late great novelist David Foster Wallace's 10 favorite books.
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In Pictures: Timeline of American rockets
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In Pictures: Space photos of the day: Massive craters
All Content
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Mars Opportunity rover sees its own shadow in crater
Opportunity just started moving again two weeks ago, after spending more than four months at a site along Endeavour's rim called Greeley Haven. The rover sat out the harsh Martian winter at the site, whose tilt allowed Opportunity to angle its solar panels toward the low-hanging sun.
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Beyond SpaceX: Five companies seeking to change space travel
During the past 10 years, Presidents George W. Bush and Obama have directed NASA to turn the job of transporting cargo and crew to the space station over to the private sector. As that process gathers pace, here is a list of the key players.
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Death Valley used as stand-in for Martian landscape (+video)
A project scientist for NASA's huge Curiosity rover is leading a handful of journalists on a trip to Death Valley, whose geology and vistas resemble Mars in some places. The goal is to help reporters get a better idea of the science Curiosity will be doing when it touches down on the Red Planet on the night of Aug. 5.
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Mars lava unlocks the red planet's secrets (+video)
The first lava ever seen in an extraterrestrial environment was spotted recently by scientists. It indicates that Mars was shaped by volcanic activity.
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NASA photo captures 12-mile-high dust devil on Mars (+video)
A humongous dust devil churned on Mars last month, as seen in a photo taken by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
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Life on Mars: Could fossil record be trapped in ancient lake mud?
A team of scientists from Brown University found that only 79 lake beds contained deposits of minerals that hint at clays on the surface.
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Five places we might find life in our own solar system
Life on Earth occupies some bizarre places – pools of pitch, deep-sea hydrothermal vents, and lightless lakes buried under glaciers. While scientists hunt for hospitable planets circling other stars, the solar system has a few candidates. Here are five.
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Is Mars sucking water from its own atmosphere?
Salty soils on Mars act to collect moisture from the Red Planet's atmosphere, according to new research. The salt and the moisture combine to create a brine that may encourage nutrients.
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Marsquake? How rumblings could bolster hope for life on Mars.
If seismic activity on Mars is recent, and it can be traced to a volcano, it could mean that there is a source of heat to melt ice and provide potential habitats for simple forms of life.
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Obama's NASA budget: Mars takes a hit, but space science isn't dead
Two major Mars missions lost out to the James Web Space Telescope in Obama's proposed NASA budget, but there's still money for other ambitious space-science missions.
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NASA to exchange 'flagship' missions for small-ball projects (+video)
NASA is drastically scaling back its Mars exploration initiatives in exchange for smaller, more efficient missions, agency officials say.
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Is NASA giving up on Mars? (+video)
NASA's 2013 budget includes deep cuts to its planetary science mission, particularly its efforts to send spacecraft to Mars. Instead, the space agency will focus on human spaceflight and infrared astronomy. Is NASA now heading down the wrong path?
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Obama's NASA budget favors a space telescope over Mars exploration
The proposed 2013 federal budget shifts funding away from missions to Mars and emphasizes manned spaceflight and astronomy.
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Mars budget cuts 'irrational' says former NASA science chief
NASA faces deep budget cuts, forcing it to eliminate some missions to explore Mars. The cuts will allow the agency to continue its plans to build a successor to the Hubble Space Telescope.
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Red Planet meets red ink: budget ax could chop two NASA Mars missions
The budget to be released by President Obama Monday is expected to include a one-third cut in NASA's Mars program, in part to pay for other cost overruns within the agency.
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Mars missions cancelled? NASA budget could prompt deep cuts.
While exactly how much money is allocated to NASA is unknown, insiders expect a significant reduction in the portion slotted for robotic exploration of Mars and other solar system bodies.
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Why is NASA sending a penny to Mars?
A US penny is on-board NASA's Curiosity rover that is scheduled to land on Mars in August. The 1909 penny commemorating the centennial of President Lincoln's birth will act as a calibration target to help scientists and the public to gauge the size of objects on Mars.
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ESA Mars probe finds evidence of ancient Martian ocean
The European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft detected sediments on Mars' northern plains that are reminiscent of an ocean floor, in a region that has also previously been identified as the site of ancient Martian shorelines, the researchers said.
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Russian probe crash sparks conspiracy theories, confusion
Russia's Phobos-Grunt space probesuffered a debilitating malfunction shortly after its November 2011 launch, which stranded it in low-Earth orbit for more than two months before it succumbed to gravitational forces and plummeted through the atmosphere on Jan. 15.
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Meteorites in Morocco confirmed to be Martian in origin
The meteorites fell in the Moroccan desert in July and were recovered a few months later.
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Russia's dead Mars probe crashed in unknown location
So far, no eyewitness accounts of the Phobos-Grunt re-entry have surfaced, and there have been no verified sightings of any pieces of the 14.5-ton spacecraft that may have survived.
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Russian space probe turned space junk crash will have worldwide audience
According to ESA, studies by the Russian space agency and NASA indicate that Phobos-Grunt's fuel tanks should burst high above the Earth, releasing a load of propellant that will subsequently dissipate.
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Russian space probe may crash into Indian Ocean
If Phobos-Grunt comes down at the in the predicted window it will fall over a stretch of empty ocean west of the Indonesian island of Java, according to a re-entry projection map Roscosmos published with the update.
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David Foster Wallace's 10 favorite books
The late great novelist David Foster Wallace's 10 favorite books.
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Long lived Mars rover picks prime spot to weather winter
Opportunity is hunkering down at a spot called Greeley Haven, a rocky outcrop along the rim of the Red Planet's huge Endeavour crater.
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