The Front Hazard Avoidance Camera (Front Hazcam) took this picture at 10:49:44 UTC showing a trace left by the rover on the Martian soil.It is as if Curiosity had moved forward and then back, but curiously the other wheels of the rover do not seem to have left traces other than the one clearly visible here!Unfortunately, at the moment there are no color images of this track, but I hope that they will be taken as soon as possible because the furrow shows interesting albedo variations that certainly correspond to color variations equally interesting.Who knows if it was a small accident or a deliberate maneuver, I will inform you as soon as possible. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Original link: https://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/raw_images/668336/ https://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/proj/msl/redops/ods/surface/sol/02556/opgs/edr/fcam/FRB_624406315EDR_F0770070FHAZ00302M_.JPG This post has been automatically translated. See the original post here.

These are the claims made by Dr. Gilbert V. Levin in a long article published on Scientific American, an authoritative scientific magazine. In this beautiful article are listed a series of arguments in favor of this thesis, highlighting also THE TOTAL ABSENCE OF AGAINST PROOFS! Article on Scientific American: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/im-convinced-we-found-evidence-of-life-on-mars-in-the-1970s/ Full interview with Dr. Gilbert Levin, creator and responsible for the LR experiment aboard the 1976 Viking missions, while he illustrates how life has already been discovered on Mars through the marked release experiment he designed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChKHnC5Mbj4 This post has been automatically translated. See the original post here.

Your browser does not support HTML video. During Sol 308 (October 9, 2019), the MOLE probe resumed digging by penetrating a few millimeters into the Martian soil, as documented by this sequence of images taken by the Instrument Deployment Camera (IDC).It seems therefore that the “scratch and push” of the robotic arm has been successful, although perhaps it is still a bit ‘early to sing victory.Let’s keep our fingers crossed and hope that the problem has finally been solved….The original images have undergone white balancing and a slight increase in microcontrast and color saturation in order to make the colors more similar to what the human eye would see.N.B. All three photos have been processed following a single scheme and setting the various filters to identical values for all photos, so as to make them perfectly comparable with each other and thus be able to appreciate the real differences in color and brightness between the photos themselves. Original images: Sol 308 16:26:33 LMST https://mars.nasa.gov/raw_images/659273/ https://mars.nasa.gov/insight-raw-images/surface/sol/0308/idc/D000M0308_623884580EDR_F0000_0675M_.JPG Sol 308 16:27:19 LMST https://mars.nasa.gov/raw_images/659274/ https://mars.nasa.gov/insight-raw-images/surface/sol/0308/idc/D000M0308_623884627EDR_F0000_0676M_.JPG Sol 308 16:28:05 LMST https://mars.nasa.gov/raw_images/659275/ https://mars.nasa.gov/insight-raw-images/surface/sol/0308/idc/D000M0308_623884675EDR_F0000_0677M_.JPG Sol 308 16:28:51 LMST https://mars.nasa.gov/raw_images/659276/ https://mars.nasa.gov/insight-raw-images/surface/sol/0308/idc/D000M0308_623884722EDR_F0000_0678M_.JPG Sol 308 16:29:38 LMST https://mars.nasa.gov/raw_images/659277/ https://mars.nasa.gov/insight-raw-images/surface/sol/0308/idc/D000M0308_623884770EDR_F0000_0679M_.JPG Sol 308 16:30:24 LMST https://mars.nasa.gov/raw_images/659278/ https://mars.nasa.gov/insight-raw-images/surface/sol/0308/idc/D000M0308_623884817EDR_F0000_0680M_.JPG Sol 308 16:31:10 LMST https://mars.nasa.gov/raw_images/659279/ https://mars.nasa.gov/insight-raw-images/surface/sol/0308/idc/D000M0308_623884865EDR_F0000_0681M_.JPG Sol 308 16:31:56 LMST https://mars.nasa.gov/raw_images/659280/ https://mars.nasa.gov/insight-raw-images/surface/sol/0308/idc/D000M0308_623884912EDR_F0000_0682M_.JPG Sol 308 16:32:42 LMST https://mars.nasa.gov/raw_images/659281/ https://mars.nasa.gov/insight-raw-images/surface/sol/0308/idc/D000M0308_623884959EDR_F0000_0683M_.JPG Sol 308 16:33:29 LMST https://mars.nasa.gov/raw_images/659282/ https://mars.nasa.gov/insight-raw-images/surface/sol/0308/idc/D000M0308_623885007EDR_F0000_0684M_.JPG This post has been automatically translated. See the original post here.

Ascraeus Mons, October 6, 2019: another active volcano? After the ruckus created a year ago by the now famous “plume of Arsia Mons”, now it seems to be the turn of Ascraeus Mons, the northernmost of the three volcanoes known as Tharsis Montes (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascraeus_Mons). Ascraeus Mons is 18225 meters high compared to the average level of Mars and since in this photo it is on the terminator it should have shown a very long shadow. Instead, from this photo you can see a long blue plume that evidently stands taller than the volcano itself!Now that “finally” InSight has proved that Mars is geologically active, it would not be the case to reconsider the question of volcanism! Original photo: https://www.flickr.com/photos/esa_marswebcam/48859937803/ This post has been automatically translated. See the original post here.

They would seem to be the words of an ordinary crackpot conspiracy theorist, but they are the words of the Director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division Dr. Jim Green! (see https://science.nasa.gov/about-us/leadership/dr-jim-green) This is the gist of the irritating statements released to The Telegraph https://edition.cnn.com/2019/09/30/us/nasa-life-on-mars-jim-green-scn-trnd/index.html ) and the Sunday Telegraph https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7517149/Nasas-chief-scientist-Jim-Green-predicts-Mars-rovers-launching-summer-life.html ). Both NASA and ESA mission that will start in 2020 to search for life on Mars, could make the discovery of the century but public opinion is not yet ready to receive such news!Instead he is ready, indeed very ready, to the point of allowing himself to establish that such a discovery will have to be carefully filtered before being eventually made public; it is like a worker telling his employer that he is not able to use what is produced thanks to his own money. NASA, ESA and any space agency are funded with public money, money coming from the pockets of the same people that Dr. Jim Green considers unprepared to receive the results of research for which he is paid handsomely: he takes the money without problems but the results of these researches will be disclosed only and when it will be convenient to him; does it seem an acceptable attitude?In other times, such statements, would have triggered the popular indignation such as to force such a character to resign immediately and to disappear totally from public life to avoid a sure media lynching.Such statements are not only arrogant, contrary to the scientific spirit, unethical towards those who finance his work and totally unbearable, they are also a serious insult to the intelligence of all those researchers who for decades have been advancing evidence in support of the existence of life on Mars!Shame on you Dr. Jim Green, despite your lofty titles, I think you should be treated as an embarrassment by the whole serious and honest scientific world!!! This post has been automatically translated. See the original post here.

Your browser does not support HTML video. Between 02:21:18 UTC and 03:09:58 UTC Mastcam Left took this trio of images of the right flank of Mount Sharp.The first thing you notice is the obvious change in the brightness of the landscape with a much more pronounced drop in the second image. My first hypothesis was that of a possible partial eclipse, but subsequent astronomical verifications have ruled out this possibility.I would also rule out the possibility that the photos were taken with different exposure times, since not only the overall brightness varies but also the brightness ratio between the visible edge of Mount Sharp and the sky.I would be inclined to think that this may have been a weak and temporary veiling of the Sun. In fact sometimes the Martian sky is furrowed by more or less dense clouds, although the photos of this specific Sol do not seem to show the presence of clouds.However, the most enigmatic aspect of this sequence is the way in which the greenish areas tend to disappear as the general brightness of the landscape decreases. This detail in particular suggests to me the likely use of a polarizing filter rotated in a different position for each photo in order to study the polarimetric characteristics of the Martian soil.Unfortunately at the moment I have not found specific information about it, but when and if will be released explanations about this unique phenomenon will be my care to publish them.The original images are a black and white encoding of the Bayer mask that have been converted to color through a process called “debayering” or “demosaicing”. In addition, the photos have undergone a reduction in noise due to Jpeg compression, white balance and a slight increase in microcontrast and color saturation in order to make the colors more similar to what the human eye would see.N.B. All three photos have been processed following a single scheme and setting the various filters to identical values for all photos, in order to make them perfectly comparable with each other and thus be able to appreciate the real differences in color and brightness between the photos themselves. Original images: 28/09/2019 02:21:18 UTC https://mars.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/msss/02539/mcam/2539ML0133610000805419C00_DXXX.jpg 28/09/2019 02:55:53 UTC https://mars.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/msss/02539/mcam/2539ML0133620000805424C00_DXXX.jpg 28/09/2019 03:09:58 UTC https://mars.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/msss/02539/mcam/2539ML0133630000805429C00_DXXX.jpg This post has been automatically translated. See the original post here.

NASA’s InSight lander has discovered something totally unexpected and unique on the surface of Mars.The red planet once possessed a global magnetic field of which traces remain evident in the rocks that make up its crust. Already in 1997 the probe Mars Global Surveyor was able to map the magnetic field of the Martian crust flying over the surface at an altitude ranging between 100 km and 400 km, detecting a magnetic intensity ten times higher than that of the Earth at the same altitude.It is also known that the interaction between the solar wind and the atmosphere of Mars produces a magnetosphere with an elongated shape towards the shadow side of the planet.Also the probe MAVEN has provided valuable information on the complex structure of the weak Martian magnetic field, but always measurements made from orbit.The lander InSight instead is the first probe (and so far the only one) to provide us with measurements taken from the ground, measurements that have been found to be truly amazing!The magnetometer of InSight has begun to amaze us by detecting a magnetic field twenty times more intense than expected based on the measurements made by the various orbiters that had already measured a magnetic intensity ten times higher than the Earth at the same altitude!According to Dave Brain, physicist at the University of Colorado, if this high value was created by rocks near the surface we should admit that Mars has retained an intense global magnetic field for a much longer time than we thought until now.But the most shocking surprise was to detect pulsations in the intensity and/or direction of the magnetic field with a frequency between 0.01 Hz and 1 Hz mainly during the night.Similar pulsations on Earth are observed only at high latitudes and mainly during the auroras and never at the equator, as in the case of InSight. This singular behavior of the Martian magnetic field “could” be caused by the transit of the equatorial zones in the magnetic tail of the planet that would act on the local magnetic field in a similar way to the strings of a guitar when they are plucked, although at the moment it is a simple hypothesis and not a scientifically established fact.Last but not least, from the data obtained from the magnetometer of InSight would emerge the presence of an electrically conductive layer under the surface at a depth less than 100 km.This layer should be made of water mixed with salts or water mixed with ice that apparently would wrap the entire planet.Obviously the presence of this global liquid water layer will require further verification that will be performed by future missions able to probe more or less directly the Martian subsurface.The fact remains that the current image of Mars painted as a totally arid planet with no magnetic field is destined to be revolutionized in the very near future. Sources: National Geographic article by Robin George Andrews:“Mysterious magnetic pulses discovered on Mars”. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/09/mars-insight-feels-mysterious-magnetic-pulsations-at-midnight/ Free downloadable PDF publication:“InSight Observations of Magnetic Pulsations on Martian Surface: Initial Findings and Implications”. https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EPSC-DPS2019/EPSC-DPS2019-838-1.pdf This post has been automatically translated. See the original post here.