Exploration of Mars

The presence or lack thereof, of water on Mars has been a point of contention and much debate and trepidation of scientists for decades. However, NASA’s Mars Rover has now discovered martial soil which shows that water must have existed on the red planet relatively “recently”, as in… in the past million years, give or take.

India?s famously frugal Mars mission has been extended by around six months thanks to a surplus of fuel on board the spacecraft, the country?s space agency said March 24.

The Mars Orbiter Mission spacecraft had been scheduled to wrap up its mission this month after India in September became the first Asian nation to reach the Red Planet, all on a shoe-string budget.

The dream of living on the Red Planet has come to naught for Turks - at least for the near future.

"Mars One," a project that aims to put a permanent human settlement on Mars, has chosen 100 people in a third round of voting from an initial 202,586 applicants, but none of the 11 Turks who had originally applied for a one-way ticket to the Red Planet succeeded in making the cut.

A mountain on Mars may have built up over time from lake sediments, according to NASA scientists who have been studying observations from the Curiosity rover scouring the Red Planet.
      
The latest analysis is based on rocks discovered at the lower edges of Mount Sharp, which is located, rather oddly, in the midst of a crater on Earth's neighboring planet.        

India's low-cost mission to Mars successfully entered the red planet's orbit, crowning India as the first country to complete the trip at its maiden attempt

The US space agency's Opportunity rover has now clocked more miles on Mars than any man-made vehicle to reach another celestial body, NASA said Monday.
      
Since arriving on the Red Planet in 2004, the solar-powered robot has journeyed across 40 kilometers of Martian terrain.