Mars

NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover has officially reached the halfway mark in its marathon journey to the Red Planet. The robotic explorer is set to rendezvous with Mars and attempt a perilous descent through the thin atmosphere in February 2021.

Having been responsible for designing Britain's Antarctic Research Station, Hugh Broughton Architects knows how to keep humans alive in harsh conditions. The firm is using this experience to imagine what would be required to shelter humans on Mars.

ESA has awarded Airbus a €491 million contract to design and build the Earth Return Orbiter, which will return the first samples collected from the Red Planet by NASA's Perseverance rover to Earth.

When NASA’s newest rover touches down on Mars, it will carry with it a set of mirrors that will serve as targets for future laser-wielding spacecraft. The laser-bouncing tech is similar to that used in the Apollo era, to characterize the Moon.

ESA's Mars Express has found evidence of more liquid water beneath the ice cap in the south polar region of Mars. Based on data from the MARSIS radar instrument, researchers found three subsurface ponds with the largest measuring 20 x 30 km (12 x 19 mi).

If a Mars rover ever were to find signs of life on the Red Planet, chances are that it would be in the form of compounds detected in the soil. A newly designed device could better help it do so, as compared to existing technologies.

JAXA and Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) have teamed up to develop a "Super Hi-Vision Camera" for JAXA’s Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission that will capture the first 8K ultra-high-definition images in orbit around the Red Planet.

A new experiment placing bacteria on the outside of the International Space Station (ISS) has found that micro-organisms can survive in space for years, or even decades. The study lends weight to the idea that life could travel between planets.

A NASA spacecraft has observed a pulsing glow coming from Mars. Huge spots of ultraviolet light were seen in the night sky, pulsing with uncanny regularity – exactly three times every night. The find highlights the Red Planet's atmospheric processes.

Geological evidence shows that ancient Mars had flowing water. It’s long been thought that its climate was warm and wet, but a new study has found evidence that the planet was instead covered in ice sheets, and much of its water glacier run-off.

NASA has announced that, soon after yesterday’s launch of the Mars Perseverance rover, that mission had experienced minor issues that hindered communication and caused the spacecraft couriering the rover to enter a "safe mode."

NASA's Mars 2020 mission and the Perseverance rover are on their way to Mars. At 4:50 am EDT (11:50 GMT), the spacecraft lifted off on the first leg of its 309-million-mile voyage to search for signs of life on the Red Planet.