Related papers: A Novel Material for In Situ Construction on Mars:…
The wind-driven hopping motion of sand grains, known as saltation, forms dunes and ripples and ejects fine dust particles into the atmosphere on both Earth and Mars. While the wind speed at which saltation is initiated, the fluid threshold,…
The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS) has now made continuous in-situ meteorological measurements for several martian years at Gale crater, Mars. Of importance in the search for liquid formation are…
At low ambient pressure, temperature gradients in porous soil lead to a gas flow, called thermal creep. With this regard, Mars is a unique as the conditions for thermal creep to occur in natural soil only exist on this planet in the solar…
Mars' sedimentary rocks record Gyrs of environmental change. New data enable the first global analysis of paleo-environment relevant physical properties of these rocks, including layer thickness and accumulation rate. We find that layer…
We report new laboratory studies of the radiation-induced destruction of glycine-containing ices for a range of temperatures and compositions that allow extrapolation to Martian conditions. In-situ infrared spectroscopy was used to study…
The application of directed energy to spacecraft mission design is explored using rapid transit to Mars as the design objective. An Earth-based laser array of unprecedented size (10~m diameter) and power (100~MW) is assumed to be enabled by…
Terraforming Mars is an age old science fiction concept now worth revisiting through the lens of modern science and technology. This document serves as a summary of contemporary ideas about Mars terraforming, prepared for attendees of the…
The Curiosity rover recently detected a background of 0.7 ppb and spikes of 7 ppb of methane on Mars. This in situ measurement reorients our understanding of the Martian environment and its potential for life, as the current theories do not…
The decline of Mars' global magnetic field some 3.8-4.1 billion years ago is thought to reflect the demise of the dynamo that operated in its liquid core. The dynamo was probably powered by planetary cooling and so its termination is…
Mercury, the innermost planet, formed under highly reduced conditions, based mainly on surface Fe, S, and Si abundances determined from MESSENGER mission data. The minor element Cr may serve as an independent oxybarometer, but only very…
Remote sensing observations meet some limitations when used to study the bulk atmospheric composition of the giant planets of our solar system. A remarkable example of the superiority of in situ probe measurements is illustrated by the…
Water has been stored in the Martian mantle since its formation, primarily in nominally anhydrous minerals. The short-lived early hydrosphere and intermittently flowing water on the Martian surface may have been supplied and replenished by…
With approximately one ninth of Earth's mass, Mars is widely considered to be a stranded planetary embryo that never became a fully-grown planet. A currently popular planet formation theory predicts that Mars formed near Earth and Venus and…
This paper presents an application of artificial intelligence on mass spectrometry data for detecting habitability potential of ancient Mars. Although data was collected for planet Mars the same approach can be replicated for any…
This chapter presents a comprehensive overview of the abundances and distribution of S, and the processes that control the behavior of S on the Earth's Moon and on Mercury. The two planetary bodies share notable similarities, such as…
The increasing precision of planetary mass and radius observations is bringing major questions about the structure and formation of planets--such as the nature of the radius valley and origin of super-Mercuries--within reach, demanding the…
To date, no accretion model has succeeded in reproducing all observed constraints in the inner Solar System. These constraints include 1) the orbits, in particular the small eccentricities, and 2) the masses of the terrestrial planets --…
Experiments were performed to study how rocket exhaust blows soil in lunar and Martian conditions. Jets of gas were blown downwardly at various granular materials while a camera recorded the formation of scour holes as the material was…
Mars exploration motivates the search for extraterrestrial life, the development of space technologies, and the design of human missions and habitations. Here we seek new insights and pose unresolved questions relating to the natural…
The next great leap in Martian exploration will be the return of samples to Earth. To ensure the maximum scientific return from studying these samples, the development and utilisation of nondestructive analytical techniques are essential to…