The Planet Mars: Scientific Findings & Conjectures

NASA just heard the first sounds of wind on Mars. You can hear them, too.

NASA just announced it has heard the first-ever “sounds” of wind on Mars. But if you’re expecting howling, swooshes and crackles, you’re in for a surprise. These are vibrations, captured by NASA’s InSight lander, which touched down on the Red Planet just last week. The craft will stay put until November 24, 2020, measuring quakes that happen anywhere on Mars.
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Thank the lord they didn't send the probe to Uranus.
 
Is this the sort of news we've been awaiting for 40-some years? Maybe so ... Maybe no ...
NASA Rover on Mars Detects Puff of Gas That Hints at Possibility of Life

Mars, it appears, is belching a large amount of a gas that could be a sign of microbes living on the planet today.

In a measurement taken on Wednesday, NASA’s Curiosity rover discovered startlingly high amounts of methane in the Martian air, a gas that on Earth is usually produced by living things. The data arrived back on Earth on Thursday, and by Friday, scientists working on the mission were excitedly discussing the news, which has not yet been announced by NASA.

“Given this surprising result, we’ve reorganized the weekend to run a follow-up experiment,” Ashwin R. Vasavada, the project scientist for the mission, wrote to the science team in an email that was obtained by The Times.

The mission’s controllers on Earth sent new instructions to the rover on Friday to follow up on the readings, bumping previously planned science work. The results of these observations are expected back on the ground on Monday.
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SOURCE: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/22/science/nasa-mars-rover-life.html
 
AT MIDNIGHT ON Mars, the red planet’s magnetic field sometimes starts to pulsate in ways that have never before been observed. The cause is currently unknown.

That’s just one of the stunning preliminary findings from NASA’s very first robotic geophysicist there, the InSight lander. Since touching down in November 2018, this spacecraft has been gathering intel to help scientists better understand our neighboring planet’s innards and evolution, such as taking the temperature of its upper crust, recording the sounds of alien quakes, and measuring the strength and direction of the planet’s magnetic field.

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InSight’s magnetometer, the first placed on the Martian surface, gave scientists their best look yet at the crustal magnetic field, and it gave them a bit of a shock: The magnetic field near the robot was around 20 times stronger than what had been predicted based on past orbital measurements.

[A scientist] familiar with the InSight data, says that this strong, stable magnetic signal is coming from rocks near InSight, but whether they are deep underground or nearer to the surface is currently unclear.

Perhaps even more puzzling, InSight also found that the crustal magnetic field near its location jiggled about every now and then. This wobbling is known as a magnetic pulsation, explains Matthew Fillingim, a space physicist at the University of California, Berkeley, and a member of the InSight science team.

These pulses are fluctuations in the strength or direction of the magnetic field, and they are not entirely unusual. Plenty of them happen on Earth and Mars triggered by upper atmospheric chaos, the action of the solar wind, and kinks in the planets’ magnetic bubbles, among other things.

What’s strange is that these Martian wobbles happen at local midnight, as if responding to the demands of an unseen, nocturnal timer.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/...s-mysterious-magnetic-pulsations-at-midnight/

maximus otter
 
maximus otter said:
What’s strange is that these Martian wobbles happen at local midnight, as if responding to the demands of an unseen, nocturnal timer.
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Ancient machinery from a long-dead civilisation turning on?
 
As imminent Mars missions raise the possibility of identifying signs of Martian life, NASA's chief scientist questions whether we earthlings are prepared for the results ...
NASA is close to finding life on Mars but the world isn't ready for the discovery, the agency's chief scientist says

NASA's next mission to Mars will be its most advanced yet. But if scientists discover there was once life -- or there is life -- on the Red Planet, will the public be able to handle such an extraterrestrial concept?

"It will be revolutionary," Green told the Telegraph. "It will start a whole new line of thinking. I don't think we're prepared for the results. We're not."

The agency's Mars 2020 rover, set to launch next summer, will be the first to collect samples of Martian material to send back to Earth. But if scientists discover biosignatures of life in Mars' crust, the findings could majorly rock astrobiology, said Green, the director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA.

"What happens next is a whole new set of scientific questions," he said. "Is that life like us? How are we related?"

The Mars 2020 rover, along with the European Space Agency's ExoMars rover, will drill into the Martian crust. The surface of the Red Planet is believed to be radioactive, so if there is life on Mars, it likely lives below ground. ...
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FULL STORY: https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/30/us/nasa-life-on-mars-jim-green-scn-trnd/index.html
 
Nasa probing oxygen mystery on Mars
By Paul RinconScience editor, BBC News website
  • The oxygen in Martian air is changing in a way that can't currently be explained by known chemical processes.
    That's the claim of scientists working on the Curiosity rover mission, who have been taking measurements of the gas.
    They discovered that the amount of oxygen in Martian "air" rose by 30% in spring and summer.
etc
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-50419917
 
Interestingly, Mars's atmosphere has the same ingredients as Earth's - just in different proportions.
Is the above such a mystery? In Spring and Summer, some of the ice and permafrost melts and releases trapped gases.
 
Mythopoeika said:
Interestingly, Mars's atmosphere has the same ingredients as Earth's - just in different proportions.
Is the above such a mystery? In Spring and Summer, some of the ice and permafrost melts and releases trapped gases.
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Or in the spring and summer plants grow and photosynthesise and release oxygen... :)
 
Mythopoeika said:
Interestingly, Mars's atmosphere has the same ingredients as Earth's - just in different proportions.
Is the above such a mystery? In Spring and Summer, some of the ice and permafrost melts and releases trapped gases.
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Or Elon Musk is secretly terraforming Mars.
 
gordonrutter said:
Or in the spring and summer plants grow and photosynthesise and release oxygen... :)
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I suppose that one way to test for this would be for part of a Mars mission to be some kind or folding green house to be automatically erected there and the atmosphere inside monitored separately from the external.
Maybe place in a few hardy cold resistant plants.
 
The Winds of Mars.

High above the surface of Mars, winds circulate from dayside to night, and the air undulates as it passes over mountains and valleys far below, a new study shows.

These insights come courtesy of NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft, which now has provided the first detailed maps of winds in the Martian thermosphere, one of the highest layers of the planet’s atmosphere. The data, described in the Dec. 13 Science, could help researchers better understand how the Red Planet’s climate has changed over time by looking into how Mars’ atmosphere bleeds into space.

“Looking at how gas circulates in that layer allows us to better understand the rate at which the atmosphere is being lost and the way it’s being lost,” says study author Mehdi Benna, a planetary scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Wind movement in Mars’ thermosphere is much simpler than on Earth, data from the orbiter show. A single circulating flow persists from season to season, continually moving air from the planet’s dayside to its nightside, whereas on Earth there are multiple flow patterns at any one time. “Oceans on Earth complicate the circulation patterns,” Benna says. “Mars doesn’t have all that.”

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/nasa-maven-probe-how-wind-circulates-mars-upper-atmosphere
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
Nice collection of some of the strangest Martian photos here:

https://www.liveabout.com/the-most-mysterious-anomalies-of-mars-4123208
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Coincidentally, I just switched on my radio and Nicky Campbell on Radio 5 Live was interviewing some scientist about the 4 Mars missions planned for 2020. With regard to the probe specifically designed to detect evidence of past or present life, Nicky asked whether we can expect to find a forest - which ties in nicely with one of the photos in the link above.
The scientist dismissed the Martian forest idea, but was hopeful that some microbial life may be found.
 
The first seismological results from Mars are being analyzed and released ...
Mars lander confirms quakes, even aftershocks on red planet

NASA’s newest Mars lander has confirmed that quakes and even aftershocks are regularly jolting the red planet.

Scientists reported Monday that the seismometer from the InSight spacecraft has detected scores of marsquakes.

A series of research papers focus on the 174 marsquakes noted through last September. Twenty-four were relatively strong — magnitude 3 to 4 — and apparently stemmed from distant underground triggers. The rest were smaller, with uncertain magnitude and origin. Even the stronger quakes would not have posed a hazard to anybody on the planet’s surface, researchers said in a press conference.

The overall tally has since jumped to more than 450 marsquakes, most of them small, InSight’s lead scientist, Bruce Banerdt of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in an email.

The basic cause of Martian quakes is a long-term cooling of the planet, which makes it contract, fracturing its brittle outer layers, Banerdt told reporters. But it’s not clear what detailed mechanisms bring on specific quakes, he said.

While the team cannot rule out meteor impacts, the source of the tremors appears to be underground, according to the researchers. Nevertheless, Mars-orbiting spacecraft are on the lookout for signs of recent impacts, and InSight’s cameras scan the night sky for meteors. So far, they’ve come up empty. ...
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FULL STORY: https://apnews.com/cfdf64149090edff226fb473bbb407b5
 
Doesn't that happen on our moon, too? Just because it's a "dead" world, doesn't mean it's entirely dormant.
 
GNC said:
Doesn't that happen on our moon, too? Just because it's a "dead" world, doesn't mean it's entirely dormant.
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Some form of quaking is known or expected on all the solid planets and moons, as well as the sun.

The interest isn't so much in whether or not there are quakes, but rather what the quaking signifies about the body's structure and ongoing processes. For example, moonquakes are strongly (but not uniquely) associated with tidal forces, whereas Mars' quakes are associated with tectonic activity.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quake_(natural_phenomenon)
 
INT21 said:
But Mars isn't supposed to have any tectonic movement.
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There's considerable evidence suggesting Mars was subject to tectonic processes long ago, but large-scale tectonic activity has long been presumed to have faded or ended.

We simply don't know enough about Mars' internal structure to say one way or the other. This is a big reason there's been interest in sending seismographic sensors to Mars, dating back to the 1970s and the Viking landers. The Viking sensors registered some shaking now and then, but the presence of unexpectedly strong wind conditions made it difficult to prove the vibrations were coming from beneath the ground.
 
About this wind.

As the Martian atmosphere is much thinner than ours, will the wind, even at high speed, make that much difference ?

I assume you're thinking the disturbances may be due to the vehicle/probe shaking and maybe not from underground.
 
INT21 said:
About this wind.
As the Martian atmosphere is much thinner than ours, will the wind, even at high speed, make that much difference ?
I assume you're thinking the disturbances may be due to the vehicle/probe shaking and maybe not from underground.
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Yes ... On the Viking landers the seismic sensors were mounted on the top or upper half of the lander. The winds were more substantial than expected, so the vibrations registered by the high-mounted seismic sensors couldn't be unambiguously attributed to ground shaking.

Most of the evidence for Martian tectonics has come from analyzing images and magnetic readings from orbit. Mars isn't all that symmetrical in structure / magnetism, and there are surface features resembling major tectonic-related faults here on earth.
 
On another front ... The magnetic sensor on NASA's InSight probe is providing the first surface readings on Mars' magnetic field(s). The results are surprising, and they diverge from prior estimates based on orbiting sensor data.
Magnetic field at Martian surface ten times stronger than expected

New data gleaned from the magnetic sensor aboard NASA's InSight spacecraft is offering an unprecedented close-up of magnetic fields on Mars.

In a study published today in Nature Geoscience, scientists reveal that the magnetic field at the InSight landing site is ten times stronger than anticipated, and fluctuates over time-scales of seconds to days.

"One of the big unknowns from previous satellite missions was what the magnetization looked like over small areas," said lead author Catherine Johnson, a professor at the University of British Columbia and senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute. "By placing the first magnetic sensor at the surface, we have gained valuable new clues about the interior structure and upper atmosphere of Mars that will help us understand how it -- and other planets like it -- formed." ...

Before the InSight mission, the best estimates of Martian magnetic fields came from satellites orbiting high above the planet, and were averaged over large distances of more than 150 kilometres.

"The ground-level data give us a much more sensitive picture of magnetization over smaller areas, and where it's coming from," said Johnson. "In addition to showing that the magnetic field at the landing site was ten times stronger than the satellites anticipated, the data implied it was coming from nearby sources."

Scientists have known that Mars had an ancient global magnetic field billions of years ago that magnetized rocks on the planet, before mysteriously switching off. Because most rocks at the surface are too young to have been magnetized by this ancient field, the team thinks it must be coming from deeper underground. ...
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FULL STORY: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/02/200224111342.htm

DETAILS & ABSTRACT For the Published Report:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-020-0537-x
 
Organic molecules discovered by Curiosity Rover consistent with early life on Mars: study

Source: phys.org
Date: 5 March, 2020

This self-portrait of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity combines dozens of exposures taken by the rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) during the 177th Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity's work on Mars (Feb. 3, 2013), plus three exposures taken during Sol 270 (May 10, 2013) to update the appearance of part of the ground beside the rover. Credit: NASA

Organic compounds called thiophenes are found on Earth in coal, crude oil and oddly enough, in white truffles, the mushroom beloved by epicureans and wild pigs.

Thiophenes were also recently discovered on Mars, and Washington State University astrobiologist Dirk Schulze-Makuch thinks their presence would be consistent with the presence of early life on Mars.

https://m.phys.org/news/2020-03-molecules-curiosity-rover-early-life.html
 
Eons ago what may be our solar system's biggest landslide off our solar system's biggest mountain triggered an incredibly massive tsunami. The notion of the tsunami serves as secondary evidence for the presence and extent of Mars' early ocean(s).
Mars Had Landslide-Powered Tsunamis That Put Earth’s Mega-Waves to Shame

A huge mass of material fell down a mountain and into the Red Planet’s ancient ocean.

Billions of years ago, a giant landslide cascaded down the slopes of the largest mountain in the solar system—Mars’ Olympus Mons. When all this material fell into the water of Mars’ (probable) ancient ocean, it created a towering tsunami stretching between 25 and 43 miles long that crashed against the shore of the planet’s northern hemisphere.

A new study in Planetary and Space Science identifies the remnants of this long-ago event. The landslide-induced tsunami would have required a large body of water, yet more evidence for the case in favor of the existence of a long-disappeared Martian ocean.

Martian tsunamis are not a new idea. In 2015, researchers showed that impactors from space had splashed into the planet’s ancient ocean and kicked up giant waves. The newest findings could also help planetary scientists pin down how big the ocean might have been. ...
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FULL STORY: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/mars-tsunamis-olympus-mons-180975216/

PUBLISHED REPORT:

Frontal Aureole Deposit on Acheron Fossae ridge as evidence for landslide-generated tsunami on Mars
VittorioDe Blasio
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pss.2020.104911

Abstract accessible at:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0032063318302630?via=ihub
 
The desert environments on Mars exhibit 'megaripple' sand structures like earth's deserts. Earth's versions move over time, but it was presumed Mars' versions did not. Now it's been demonstrated the Martian megaripples also move, albeit slowly.
Scientists Detect Giant 'Megaripple' Structures Moving Across Mars

For the first time, scientists have observed that 'megaripples' on Mars – huge sand waves seen on the Martian surface – are moving structures, and not ancient relics stuck in place since the Red Planet's distant past.

Megaripples, which also occur in deserts on Earth, are generally larger than smaller sand ripples, and are composed of chunkier, coarser sand grains that sit at the top of their crests, resting on finer grains buried at the bottom.

The heftiness of the crest grains – combined with the very thin and faint winds of Mars' light atmosphere today – had scientists thinking these sediment structures must be static and immovable formations. Not so, new research shows.

A study led by planetary scientist Simone Silvestro from the INAF Capodimonte Astronomical Observatory in Italy reveals Martian megaripples are a flowing phenomenon after all – although you have to watch very, very closely to catch them in the act. ...
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FULL STORY: https://www.sciencealert.com/giant-...-mars-are-actually-moving-scientists-discover
 
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