Tootfinder

Dust devil migration patterns reveal strong near-surface winds across #Mars: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adw5170 -> Dancing dust devils trace raging winds on Mars / Raging winds on Mars / How fast winds sweep across Mars: https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Mars_Express/Dancing_dust_devils_trace_raging_winds_on_Mars / https://mediarelations.unibe.ch/media_releases/2025/media_releases_2025/raging_winds_on_mars/index_eng.html / https://www.dlr.de/en/latest/news/2025/how-fast-winds-sweep-across-mars

Aeolian Sediment Lithification From Late-Stage Aqueous Activity in the Gale Crater - Implications for Habitability on #Mars: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2024JE008804 -> Evidence of Ancient Underground Water Reveals Mars May Have Stayed Habitable Longer Than Believed: https://nyuad.nyu.edu/en/news/latest-news/science-and-technology/2025/november/nyuad-research-uncovers-mars-water-history.html. Meanwhile an early webcast for the ESCAPADE launch is already running at https://www.youtube.com/live/9sT4Hr-Il30

Some interesting #chemistry found on #Mars, could it be life? https://www.science.org/conte…

Volcanic emission of reduced sulfur species shaped the climate of early Mars: #Mars Climate, Making It More Hospitable To Life: https://www.jsg.utexas.edu/news/2025/09/volcanic-emissions-of-reactive-sulfur-gases-may-have-shaped-early-mars-climate-making-it-more-hospitable-to-life/

🌱 Could we really turn Mars green?
#mars #space

Could we really turn Mars green?
Terraforming is the theoretical process of transforming a planet or moon to make it habitable for humans and other Earth-like life. The concept involves altering an alien world's atmosphere, temperature, and surface conditions to resemble Earth's environment, such as adding oxygen to the air, creating liquid water on the surface, and establishing a stable climate.

Stratigraphic Evidence of Backwater Morphodynamics and Lowland River Deltas in the Northern Hemisphere of Mars: #Mars Once Have an Ocean? New Research Suggests Yes: https://news.uark.edu/articles/80081/did-mars-once-have-an-ocean-new-research-suggests-yes

How should #Mars samples be handled upon arrival on Earth? What measurements are necessary to unlock their full scientific potential? In a new report, the Measurement Definition Team of #NASA and #ESA

An earlier video about the #Mars rock Sapphire Canyon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bLhVJKoIOg. And a press release from today: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-says-mars-rover-discovered-potential-biosignature-last-year/. And a thread about the ongoing press conference: https://x.com/SpaceflightNow/status/1965794069042634837

Mars - The Search Begins (1974): #Mars, including speculation on what form that life might take, many of the core ideas are still current 1/2 century on. The film was made just before NASA's Viking landers were launched in 1975 to begin the search but after the great success of the orbiter Mariner 9 - Olympus Mons was still called Nix Olympica and model makers believed that the sky over the Martian landscape was a deep blue.

Green-line aurora detection attempts from the surface of #Mars: https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EPSC-DPS2025/EPSC-DPS2025-1314.html -> Predicting the Green Glow of Aurorae on the Red Planet: https://www.europlanet.org/epsc-dps2025-predicting-the-green-glow-of-aurorae-on-the-red-planet/

Redox-driven mineral and organic associations in Jezero Crater, #Mars: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09413-0 -> "Here we report a detailed geological, petrographic and geochemical survey of these rocks and show that organic-carbon-bearing mudstones in the Bright Angel formation contain submillimetre-scale nodules and millimetre-scale reaction fronts enriched in ferrous iron phosphate and sulfide minerals, likely vivianite and greigite, respectively. This organic carbon appears to have participated in post-depositional redox reactions that produced the observed iron-phosphate and iron-sulfide minerals. Geological context and petrography indicate that these reactions occurred at low temperatures. Within this context, we review the various pathways by which redox reactions that involve organic matter can produce the observed suite of iron-, sulfur- and phosphorus-bearing minerals in laboratory and natural environments on Earth. Ultimately, we conclude that analysis of the core sample collected from this unit using high-sensitivity instrumentation on Earth will enable the measurements required to determine the origin of the minerals, organics and textures it contains."

An analysis of a rock sampled by NASA's #Perseverance #Mars rover last year called “Sapphire Canyon” will be discussed in a press conference at the top of the hour: #Jezero Crater long ago.

Stratigraphic Evidence of Backwater Morphodynamics and Lowland River Deltas in the Northern Hemisphere of Mars: #Mars Once Have an Ocean? New Research Suggests Yes: https://news.uark.edu/articles/80081/did-mars-once-have-an-ocean-new-research-suggests-yes

Dust, sand and wind drive slope streaks on #Mars: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-65522-4 -> Swoosh! https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2025/11/Swoosh

Seismic detection of a 600-km solid inner core in Mars: #Mars: https://english.news.cn/20250904/becfda9c766c4aff8afec30ba28b9bf6/c.html

Multiple Episodes of Fluid Alteration in Jezero Crater Indicated by MIST Mineral Identifications in PIXL XRF Data From the First 1100 Sols of the Mars 2020 Mission: #Mars research reveals multiple episodes of habitability in Jezero Crater: https://news.rice.edu/news/2025/new-mars-research-reveals-multiple-episodes-habitability-jezero-crater

Slow Radiolysis of Amino Acids in Mars-Like Permafrost Conditions - Applications to the Search for Extant Life on Mars: #Mars? Check the ice, researchers say: https://www.psu.edu/news/earth-and-mineral-sciences/story/are-there-living-microbes-mars-check-ice-researchers-say - intact biomolecules from dormant microbes degrade far slower in pure water ice than mixed soil samples.

Strong recommendation to watch the first 25 minutes of #InterstellarComet in public images from #Perseverance on #Mars - including a detailled discussion of all processing steps necessary to finally arrive at the stacked image https://x.com/astroferg/status/1974898186113438080

Planning Considerations Related to Contamination Control for the Return and Analysis of Martian Samples: #MarsSampleReturnMission

The layering of the Martian atmosphere observed in forward scattering geometry: #Mars camera CaSSIS aboard ESA's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter reveals the glowing atmosphere of Mars in unprecedented detail.

What goes on inside the #Mars north polar vortex? https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EPSC-DPS2025/EPSC-DPS2025-1438.html -> Mars’s Chilly North Polar Vortex Creates a Seasonal Ozone Layer: https://www.europlanet.org/epsc-dps2025-marss-chilly-north-polar-vortex-creates-a-seasonal-ozone-layer/

Flight around Xanthe Terra: #MarsExpress High-Resolution Stereo Camera Mars Chart (HMC30) data, an image mosaic made from single orbit observations of the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC); see https://www.geo.fu-berlin.de/en/geol/fachrichtungen/planet/presse/animations_rd/2025_XantheTerra/index.html for more.

Interesting corollary to the #Perseverance discovery in the Bright Angel formation on #Mars making headlines 1 1/2 months ago: at a public talk in Bochum as part of a mathematics outreach event - #Life Detection scale #MarsSampleReturnMission the rating could jump up to 5 or 6 after lab analysis.
Green also remarked that the sample tubes dropped by Percy are up for grabs for *any* spacefaring nation capable of doing a MSRM - including China though they don't plan to go after the Percy samples with their upcoming #Tianwen3 mission (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tianwen-3) as far as he has heard. And regardless of where they'll get their own samples they could advance the case for life, perhaps even extant, on Mars a lot - which Green feels has been all but made in the past decades of Mars research anyway. Oh, and he also thinks terraforming Mars is quite viable ...