🔭 Black Dunes in Gale Crater on Mars 🔭
Captured by the Curiosity rover, the black dunes in Gale Crater owe their dark color to volcanic rock. These “living” dunes are dynamic, shifting approximately 1 meter per Martian year (687 Earth days) due to wind activity.
Discover more about the fascinating geological features of Mars with us!
#science #mars
Captured by the Curiosity rover, the black dunes in Gale Crater owe their dark color to volcanic rock. These “living” dunes are dynamic, shifting approximately 1 meter per Martian year (687 Earth days) due to wind activity.
Discover more about the fascinating geological features of Mars with us!
#science #mars
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For the first time in history, a photograph from the surface of Mars shows both Earth and Mars’ moon Phobos in a single frame! This unique image was captured by NASA’s Curiosity rover, offering an unprecedented view of our home planet alongside one of Mars’ moons from the Martian landscape.
@science #space #mars
@science #space #mars
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An extraordinary “drawing” has appeared on the Martian surface: a smile formed by a ring of salt deposits and two impact craters. However, don’t expect to snap this cosmic grin with your phone while flying over Mars!
Salt deposits like these are visible only in the infrared spectrum, and this image was captured using the TGO (Trace Gas Orbiter) spacecraft’s infrared camera. It’s a reminder of the fascinating and unexpected beauty hidden in the details of the Red Planet.
#mars #science
Salt deposits like these are visible only in the infrared spectrum, and this image was captured using the TGO (Trace Gas Orbiter) spacecraft’s infrared camera. It’s a reminder of the fascinating and unexpected beauty hidden in the details of the Red Planet.
#mars #science
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Martian Selfie with a Twist: Perseverance Captures a Dust Devil on the Horizon
NASA’s Perseverance rover just dropped a brand-new “selfie” from Mars — but it’s not alone in the shot. Look closely at the background and you’ll spot an unexpected guest: a dust devil swirling across the Martian surface.
The vortex appears in the flat terrain to the left of the rover (horizontally aligned with it in the frame), far from the elevated area where Perseverance stands. Despite the distance — around 5 kilometers — the devil is clearly visible, adding a dynamic twist to this already impressive image.
What you’re seeing isn’t a single snapshot, but a carefully assembled mosaic made from 59 individual photos. Over the course of an hour, Perseverance used its robotic arm to capture each frame, which NASA scientists then stitched together into one seamless and detailed image.
Another reminder: even on a silent, dusty world, there’s always something stirring.
#Mars #Perseverance #NASA #DustDevil #SpaceExploration
NASA’s Perseverance rover just dropped a brand-new “selfie” from Mars — but it’s not alone in the shot. Look closely at the background and you’ll spot an unexpected guest: a dust devil swirling across the Martian surface.
The vortex appears in the flat terrain to the left of the rover (horizontally aligned with it in the frame), far from the elevated area where Perseverance stands. Despite the distance — around 5 kilometers — the devil is clearly visible, adding a dynamic twist to this already impressive image.
What you’re seeing isn’t a single snapshot, but a carefully assembled mosaic made from 59 individual photos. Over the course of an hour, Perseverance used its robotic arm to capture each frame, which NASA scientists then stitched together into one seamless and detailed image.
Another reminder: even on a silent, dusty world, there’s always something stirring.
#Mars #Perseverance #NASA #DustDevil #SpaceExploration
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A Martian volcano peeking through the clouds! 🌋
This stunning image was recently captured by the Mars Odyssey spacecraft. It shows Arsia Mons — one of the tallest volcanoes on Mars and among the highest mountains in the entire Solar System. Rising nearly 19 kilometers above the surface, its massive caldera spans over 100 kilometers in diameter. A breathtaking reminder that Mars, though quiet now, was once fiercely volcanic.
#Mars #Volcano #SpaceExploration #ArsiaMons #Science
This stunning image was recently captured by the Mars Odyssey spacecraft. It shows Arsia Mons — one of the tallest volcanoes on Mars and among the highest mountains in the entire Solar System. Rising nearly 19 kilometers above the surface, its massive caldera spans over 100 kilometers in diameter. A breathtaking reminder that Mars, though quiet now, was once fiercely volcanic.
#Mars #Volcano #SpaceExploration #ArsiaMons #Science
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The First Image of Mars: Where Art Meets Science 🎨🔭
The story of the first close-up images of Mars is a perfect blend of ingenuity, patience — and a surprising amount of creativity.
In 1965, NASA’s Mariner 4 spacecraft sent back the first photos of Mars from space. But each image, made up of just 200×200 pixels, took about 8 hours to transmit across 215 million kilometers via the Deep Space Network in South Africa, Australia, and California. The data then reached the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California.
Each pixel came as a number between 0 (white) and 63 (black), printed out by a teletype in long rows of digits. But computers were slow, and the engineers were eager to see Mars.
So they improvised.
Engineers cut the number printouts into strips and pinned them on the wall in the right sequence. Then Richard Grumm, a NASA engineer, bought some pastels, created a color key, and began hand-shading the numbers into grayscale, simulating the Martian surface. The result? A hand-drawn digital image, completed faster than any computer could have managed at the time.
“It was faster to draw it by hand than wait for the computer,” recalled Mariner 4 systems manager John Casani.
It took 10 days to fully transmit and process all 22 images. But that very first handmade version remains preserved — a genuine fusion of science and art — now proudly displayed at JPL, not far from where Mariner 4 itself was built.
🪐 A human touch on the path to the stars.
#Mars #SpaceHistory #NASA #ArtAndScience
@science
The story of the first close-up images of Mars is a perfect blend of ingenuity, patience — and a surprising amount of creativity.
In 1965, NASA’s Mariner 4 spacecraft sent back the first photos of Mars from space. But each image, made up of just 200×200 pixels, took about 8 hours to transmit across 215 million kilometers via the Deep Space Network in South Africa, Australia, and California. The data then reached the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California.
Each pixel came as a number between 0 (white) and 63 (black), printed out by a teletype in long rows of digits. But computers were slow, and the engineers were eager to see Mars.
So they improvised.
Engineers cut the number printouts into strips and pinned them on the wall in the right sequence. Then Richard Grumm, a NASA engineer, bought some pastels, created a color key, and began hand-shading the numbers into grayscale, simulating the Martian surface. The result? A hand-drawn digital image, completed faster than any computer could have managed at the time.
“It was faster to draw it by hand than wait for the computer,” recalled Mariner 4 systems manager John Casani.
It took 10 days to fully transmit and process all 22 images. But that very first handmade version remains preserved — a genuine fusion of science and art — now proudly displayed at JPL, not far from where Mariner 4 itself was built.
🪐 A human touch on the path to the stars.
#Mars #SpaceHistory #NASA #ArtAndScience
@science
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🔴 A Rock From Mars Just Filled a 2-Billion-Year Hole in the Planet’s History
Scientists have dated an unusual Martian meteorite to 1.273 billion years old — placing it almost exactly inside a huge missing chapter in our geological record of Mars.
The meteorite, called NWA 13441, was discovered in Algeria in 2019. Most Martian volcanic meteorites of its type are either younger than about 600 million years or around 2.4 billion years old. Until now, researchers had essentially no samples from the enormous interval between them.
But its age may not even be the strangest part. The rock’s neodymium isotopes suggest that the magma it formed from came from a portion of the Martian mantle that had remained remarkably untouched since the earliest days of the Solar System. Mars formed very quickly and, unlike Earth, has no active plate tectonics constantly remixing its interior — potentially allowing ancient chemical reservoirs to survive for billions of years.
In other words, a small rock blasted off Mars by an impact and eventually found in the Sahara may contain a chemical fingerprint preserved from almost the beginning of the planet itself.
How much of Mars’s earliest history could still be locked inside rocks already lying somewhere on Earth?
#Mars #Space #Meteorite #PlanetaryScience #Geology #Science
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gca.2026.06.035
Scientists have dated an unusual Martian meteorite to 1.273 billion years old — placing it almost exactly inside a huge missing chapter in our geological record of Mars.
The meteorite, called NWA 13441, was discovered in Algeria in 2019. Most Martian volcanic meteorites of its type are either younger than about 600 million years or around 2.4 billion years old. Until now, researchers had essentially no samples from the enormous interval between them.
But its age may not even be the strangest part. The rock’s neodymium isotopes suggest that the magma it formed from came from a portion of the Martian mantle that had remained remarkably untouched since the earliest days of the Solar System. Mars formed very quickly and, unlike Earth, has no active plate tectonics constantly remixing its interior — potentially allowing ancient chemical reservoirs to survive for billions of years.
In other words, a small rock blasted off Mars by an impact and eventually found in the Sahara may contain a chemical fingerprint preserved from almost the beginning of the planet itself.
How much of Mars’s earliest history could still be locked inside rocks already lying somewhere on Earth?
#Mars #Space #Meteorite #PlanetaryScience #Geology #Science
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gca.2026.06.035
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