Tag Archives: Mars

One step closer to discovering life on Mars

Posted on 09/29/2015 by jmtlewis

Yesterday NASA revealed that it has found evidence for present day liquid water on Mars. In this blog post I’ll explain how they made this discovery, why it is significant and what it means for the search for life on … Continue reading →

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Mars and Pluto: Exploring old and new horizons

Posted on 06/30/2015 by jmtlewis

Next month the New Horizons mission will make its closest pass to Pluto and its moons and send back images and data that will revolutionise our understanding of some of the most distant members of our solar system. This is a … Continue reading →

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Radiation and Mars: Don’t forget the sun cream

Posted on 05/31/2015 by jmtlewis

The most obvious difference between the Earth and Mars is that Earth is almost double the size of its neighbour. Mars’ small size meant it cooled more rapidly and the liquid iron in its core eventually solidified, resulting in the planet’s … Continue reading →

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10 photos that tell the story of Mars exploration

Posted on 04/30/2015 by jmtlewis

1. Holy gigapixels! This is technically cheating as following this link takes you to several gigapixel images of Mars that you can zoom and pan around, but they’re so amazing hopefully you can forgive me. These incredibly detailed images from … Continue reading →

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Nitrate and the search for life on Mars

Posted on 03/31/2015 by jmtlewis

In order to understand if life ever existed on Mars we need to not only look for evidence of possible ancient Martian organisms but also try and understand if there were ever environments on ancient Mars that would have been … Continue reading →

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Curiosity Rover and the mysterious Martian methane

Posted on 01/31/2015 by jmtlewis

In December exciting new data, including two new papers, from the Curiosity Rover team were released. The update focussed mainly on the detection of methane and other organic compounds by the rover. I’ll cover the other compounds in a more … Continue reading →

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Minerals and the search for life on Mars

Posted on 12/08/2014 by jmtlewis

Understanding if life could ever have existed on Mars is one of the most challenging scientific questions facing us in the 21st Century. We know that the Martian surface at present is an arid environment bombarded with ultraviolet radiation, so … Continue reading →

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