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Editorial Team

Mars Daily Editorial Team

Editorial Team

The Mars Daily Editorial Team produces Mars Daily's coverage of Mars exploration and science. We report on rovers and orbiters, sample-return and human-Mars planning, and the geology, atmosphere and astrobiology of the Red Planet. Articles reflect our team's collective editorial process, source verification, drafting, technical review, and editing, rather than a single writer's work. Mars Daily takes editorial responsibility for content under this byline. For more on how we work, see our editorial policy.

NASA Spacecraft Photographs Avalanches On Mars

Pasadena CA (SPX) Mar 04, 2008 - A NASA spacecraft in orbit around Mars has taken the first ever image of active avalanches near the Red Planet's north pole. The image shows tan clouds billowing away from the foot of a towering slope, where ice and dust have just cascaded down. The High Resolution Imaging Experiment (HiRISE) on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took the photograph Feb. 19. It is one of approximately 2,400 HiRISE images being released today.

Mar 4, 2008

New Tool Enlisted In The Search For Life On Mars

Moffet Field CA (SPX) Mar 04, 2008 - I admit I never actually wrote this goal into my grant, UC Berkeley Professor of Chemistry Richard Mathies told me, as one of his graduate students injected a drop of Zinfandel into Mathies's organic analyzer. But it is an important demonstration that the detector actually works.

Mar 4, 2008

Study casts doubt on Mars water find

Tucson (UPI) Mar 03, 2008 - A U.S. scientist said high resolution images raise doubt that liquid water has been found on the surface of Mars.

Mar 3, 2008

Mars Express One Of Three Orbiters Preparing For Phoenix Landing

Paris, France (ESA) Feb 29, 2008 - A trio of NASA and ESA spacecraft orbiting Mars are preparing for the 25 May arrival of NASA's Phoenix lander. ESA's Mars Express has already started adjusting its orbit to provide critical back-up monitoring of Phoenix.

Feb 29, 2008

Opportunity Proceeds With Caution On Sandy Slopes

Pasadena CA (SPX) Feb 29, 2008 - After recovering from a stall in Joint 1, which controls the compass orientation of the shoulder on the rover's robotic arm, Opportunity is proceeding carefully to its next target, an exposure of layered rocks known as Gilbert. Opportunity ran the usual diagnostic tests for this sort of fault, which occurred while the rover was studying a rock target known as Buckland, and successfully placed the Moessbauer spectrometer on the target on Sol 1437 (Feb. 8, 2008).

Feb 29, 2008

How The Atmospheres Of Mars And Venus Are Affected By Carbon Monoxide

Washington DC (SPX) Feb 27, 2008 - Modelling of the Earth's atmosphere has acquired economic importance due to its use in the prediction of ozone depletion and in measuring the impact of global warming. Now, researchers, writing in the online open access journal PMC Physics B have found that the rate at which electrons lose energy to carbon monoxide is greater than that to carbon dioxide at higher levels in the atmospheres of both Mars and Venus.

Feb 27, 2008

The Next-Best Thing To Being On Mars

Boston MA (SPX) Feb 27, 2008 - Last week, two MIT students began living, working and communicating with the outside world as if they were on a mission to Mars. Whenever they go outside their small, round habitat where eight people are spending a two-week mission, they don spacesuits and pass through an airlock.

Feb 27, 2008

Unique Martian Formation Reproduced, Reveals Brief Bursts Of Water

Blacksburg VA (SPX) Feb 22, 2008 - Researchers from the United States and the Netherlands report that several formations on Mars indicate incidents of rapid release of water from the planet's interior. Mars has many basins that contain formations that look like fans. A few of these fans, only about 10, have steps down into the basin.

Feb 22, 2008

Spirit Inches Downward Into Final Winter Perch

Pasadena CA (JPL) Feb 20, 2008 - Spirit is tiptoeing ever so carefully down the north edge of the elevated volcanic plateau known as Home Plate. Having completed a 4-centimeter (1.6-inch) drive on sol 1463 (Feb. 13, 2008), the rover's current northerly tilt is 27.1 degrees. Spirit's handlers plan to have the rover drive another 4 centimeters on sol 1464 (Feb. 14, 2008).

Feb 20, 2008

Mars study shows oceans of water bubbled up from below

Paris (AFP) Feb 20, 2008 - Fan-shaped deltas at the edge of huge basins scattered across Mars were probably formed by a titanic influx of water, gushing from the bowels of the Red Planet, according to study released Wednesday.

Feb 20, 2008

Mars Rovers Sharpen Questions About Livable Conditions

Boston MA (SPX) Feb 18, 2008 - Like salt used as a preservative, high concentrations of dissolved minerals in the wet, early-Mars environment known from discoveries by NASA's Opportunity rover may have thwarted any microbes from developing or surviving.

Feb 18, 2008

Still Grinding After All These Years Makes For Much Opportunity

Pasadena CA (JPL) Feb 10, 2008 - With only about a month remaining before Opportunity's fourth anniversary (in Earth years) of Mars exploration, NASA's robotic geologist is still grinding into the surface of rocks to unlock the secrets of their interior chemistry.

Feb 10, 2008

NASA Budget Request Strong On Earth Weak On Mars

Pasadena CA (SPX) Feb 06, 2008 - Two new Earth-observing satellites, a flagship mission to the outer planets, and several small lunar missions are among the highlights of the Administration's budget request for NASA for fiscal year 2009. At $17.6 billion the proposal represents a 1.8% increase over NASA's actual budget for 2008, and $4.44 billion, or just over a quarter of the total, is slated towards NASA's science missions.

Feb 6, 2008

ESA Presents Mars In 3D

Paris (ESA) Feb 5, 2008 - Mars is about to come into 3D focus as never before, thanks to the data from the Mars Express High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC). A new high-resolution Digital Terrain Model data set that is about to be released onto the Internet, will allow researchers to obtain new information about the Red Planet in 3D.

Feb 5, 2008

Mars In Their Sights

Phoenix AZ (SPX) Feb 04, 2008 - U.S. and Chinese students are taking aim at the Red Planet using an ASU-designed camera on a Mars-orbiting spacecraft. The target lies millions of miles away, but for the 22 high school students in the first-ever China Youth Space Academy, Mars is square in their sights.

Feb 4, 2008

Lyell Panorama Inside Victoria Crater Mars Four Years On Mars

Pasadena CA (JPL) Jan 28, 2008 - During four months prior to the fourth anniversary of its landing on Mars, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity examined rocks inside an alcove called Duck Bay in the western portion of Victoria Crater.

Jan 28, 2008