Mars | Page 3 | Hard Science Fiction

Apr 15 2019

Traces of life in a meteorite from Mars

ALH-77005 has already been through a lot. The lump of stone, which weighs around one pound, was ripped from the surface of Mars 178 million years ago by the impact of a bigger meteorite. The force of the impact flung it into space. Through no fault of its own, ALH-77005 was then put on a course to Earth, where it arrived three million years later. It was bigger at the time, but its entry into the Earth’s thick atmosphere would have broken it apart. A lump of brown-gray stone, weighing 483 grams and measuring 9.5 cm x 7.5 cm…

Mars

Apr 3 2019

Is it possible to fly on Mars?

Of course, it’s possible to fly to Mars – but how about on Mars? The red planet’s atmosphere is significantly thinner than Earth’s. Atmospheric pressure at Mars’s surface is 0.00636 bar, which is one-hundred-fiftieth of the pressure at Earth’s surface. For a heavier-than-air aircraft to take off, it needs lift. It’s difficult to generate enough lift in such a thin atmosphere – but engineers at NASA’s JPL have apparently done it. In any case, on NASA’s Mars 2020 rover mission, they want to include a small helicopter that could fly autonomously there at a height of up to five…

Become an astronaut now: the Austrian Space Forum is looking for two new analog astronauts

Mars

Sep 5 2018

Become an astronaut now: the Austrian Space Forum is looking for two new analog astronauts

In February 2018, I spent a couple of exciting days in Oman. There, I was allowed to participate in the Mars Simulation Amadee-18 mission. For a couple weeks, approximately twenty men and women from different countries lived as if they hadn’t landed in the Oman desert, but instead on the Red Planet. This wasn’t about fun and adventure (although the participants had quite a bit of that too), but instead about identifying problems and weak points in a real Mars expedition before one is actually attempted. (more…)

Mars

Aug 6 2018

Where does the dust on Mars come from?

The movie “The Martian” begins with the hero being separated from his crew by a dust storm and then being left behind, presumed dead, alone on Mars. In fact, because of its very thin atmosphere, a storm on Mars would feel like a light breeze on Earth and would definitely not have the force to knock over a spaceship. But Martian storms could certainly produce problems, because they would darken the sky, and this would make generating energy from sunlight no longer possible. But where does the dust come from that is currently covering almost all of Mars? (more…)