Mars Express

The Red Planet is notoriously dry and dusty, but its scarred surface shows that that wasn’t always the case. A new set of photos from the ESA's Mars Express orbiter demonstrates some pretty clear evidence of an ancient river network that once wound across the Martian landscape.

Last year a huge lake of liquid water was apparently found beneath the ice at the Martian south pole. A new study has now examined how it might have gotten there, and concluded that Mars must have had volcanic activity much more recently than is normally believed, and may even still be active today.

Christmas Day 2018 marks the 15th anniversary of ESA's Mars Express orbiter arriving at the Red Planet and to mark the occasion the space agency has released a suitably festive image of a crater that seems filled with fresh snow. It's of Korolev Crater and it's filled with perpetually frozen ice.

Scientists are watching a persistent plume that has formed over the 20 km high Arsia Mons volcano near the equator of Mars. First seen by ESA’s Mars Express orbiter on September 13, the elongated cloud is made of water ice produced by winds blowing over Arsia in the dust-laden atmosphere.

ESA has released new radar maps showing the lake buried under the south pole of Mars. They were produced by the orbiting Mars Express spacecraft as its Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding instrument probed down to depths of 1.5 km (1 mi).

A huge lake of liquid water has been found on Mars. The groundbreaking discovery marks the first time a significant amount of the life-giving liquid has been detected. Discovered through satellite radar readings, the lake lies beneath the ice caps at the south pole of Mars.

On Sunday, ESA uploaded a software update into the Mars Express' computers, where it will remain stored in memory until a scheduled restart on April 16. If successful, it will take the burden off the aging gyroscopes used to keep the spacecraft's vital high-gain radio antenna pointed at Earth.

The latest image from the Mars Express orbiter, just released by the European Space Agency, was taken on the 19th June, 2017 and shows a rare upside-down, wide-angle view of Mars with its icy northern polar cap at the bottom.

When mysterious plumes ​were observed high in the Martian atmosphere by amateur astronomers back in 2012, explanations ranged from massive auroras to a meteor impact​. Now it seems that a wild bout of space weather may be to blame.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has released new imagery captured by its long-serving Mars Express orbiter. The new images are presented in false color, detailing an area that once played host to huge volumes of water, leaving scars across the Red Planet's surface.

Martian auroras may not be as entertaining as their earthly counterparts, but after a decade of measurements by ESA’s Mars Express orbiter they've revealed a lot about the local vestigial magnetic fields of the Red Planet.

During a planned calibration maneuver, ESA's Mars Express spacecraft has captured a stunning shot of a huge swathe of the Martian environment. The image, snapped on February 25, captures a number of impressive features present on the surface of the Red Planet.