Scienceblogtwo

The first pictures and spectra of Mars were taken by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope on September 5. The robust telescope complements the information being gathered by orbiters, rovers, and other telescopes by offering a distinctive perspective on our neighboring planet through its infrared sensitivity. Webb is a global partnership between the Canadian Space Agency and the European Space Agency (Canadian Space Agency). Nearly a million miles beyond Earth, at the Sun-Earth Lagrange point 2, sits Webb's special observation station (L2). Views of Mars' visible disk are provided (the portion of the sunlit side that is facing the telescope). Because of this, Webb is able to take photos and spectra with the spectral resolution required to investigate short-lived phenomena like dust storms, weather patterns, seasonal changes, and, in a single observation, processes that happen at different times of the day (day, sunset, and night) on Mars. The Red Planet is one of the brightest ...

An gadget the size of a lunchbox is demonstrating its ability to consistently carry out the work of a tiny tree on the red and dusty surface of Mars, some 100 million miles from Earth. Since it landed on Mars in February 2021 as part of NASA's Perseverance rover mission, the MIT-led Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment, or MOXIE, has been successfully producing oxygen from the Red Planet's carbon-dioxide-rich atmosphere. Researchers say that by the end of 2021, MOXIE was able to manufacture oxygen on seven experimental runs, in a variety of atmospheric circumstances, including day and night and throughout the Martian seasons, according to a paper published in the journal Science Advances. The instrument produced six grams of oxygen per hour on each run, or about the same amount as a small tree on Earth. According to researchers, a scaled-up MOXIE may be transported to Mars before a human trip to create oxygen continually at the rate of several hundred trees. At t...

Currently, the Martian atmosphere is in no way hospitable to Earthlings. It is formed primarily of carbon dioxide and is over 100 times less dense than Earth's atmosphere. It would soon stop breathing completely for any individuals who tried to breathe in it. A modest device, about the size of a suitcase, has been consistently extracting breathable oxygen from the Martian atmosphere on that sandy, arid, alien world. In order to manufacture breathing air for a human expedition to the red planet, it is the first demonstration of the processing of in situ resources for human use on another world. Its name is MOXIE (Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) Experiment), and it is a device that utilizes electrolysis to separate Martian carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide and oxygen. It is mounted inside NASA's Perseverance rover. According to the researchers, MOXIE produced oxygen seven times as much between February 2021, when Perseverance arrived, until the end of 2021. Acco...

In the Jezero Crater of Mars, NASA's Perseverance rover is now gathering soil and rock samples that will eventually be sent back to Earth. According to the present plan, the sample tubes will be delivered by the rover to a Mars lander in 2030 so that they may be sent back to Earth. As the NASA Mars Sample Return team stated in late July, two tiny helicopters would be ready to intervene if something goes wrong. The Sample Recovery Helicopters would be the second and third rotorcraft to ever take flight on another planet if that were to happen. Additionally, their presence in the NASA and ESA-led Mars Sample Return mission may herald the start of a new era in Mars exploration, one in which tiny, lightweight helicopters routinely fly around the planet. Just over a year has passed since NASA's Ingenuity helicopter first sailed to the skies of Mars in April 2021, making the announcement of the addition of helicopters to the Mars Sample Return mission exciting. The experimental rotor...