Mars Mystery Plumes

In 2012 Amateur astronomers using telescopes on Earth were the first to report cloud-like plumes that reached heights of 155 miles above the surface of Mars. The feature developed in less than 10 hours, covered an area of up to 621 x 311 miles, and remained visible for around 10 days.

Frozen carbon dioxide and water are not thought to be able to form clouds of 155 miles high in the atmosphere.

The high altitude corresponds to the ionosphere, where the atmosphere directly interacts with the incoming solar wind of electrically charged atomic particles.  

Get complete article at the ESA page HERE

Opportunity - Eight Years Into a 90 Day Mission.....

Nasa rover Opportunity is once again gearing up for another mission.  At the start of its' fifth Martian winter, Opportunity has gained a three year driving destination, Endeavour Crater, at which it arrived to,  in August of 2011. Endeavour is 14 miles in diameter, much larger than the Eagle crater where it started it career.  After exploring Victoria Crater, Opportunity's controllers set the rover's sights on Endeavour.

Of course the 21 miles traveled and Martian dust have not left Opportunity unscathed.   According to the Science Digest article:

• Its solar panels have accumulated so much dust since Martian winds last cleaned them -- more than in previous winters -- the rover needs to stay on a sun-facing slope to have enough energy to keep active through the winter.

However unlike its' twin Spirit, which stopped communicating  in March 2010, Opportunity's six wheels are healthy enough to allow it to still maneuver.   

Read the complete Science Digest article here 

Movie of Martian Clouds from Phoenix Lander

Clouds scoot across the Martian sky in a movie clip consisting of 10 frames taken by the Surface Stereo Imager on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander.

This clip accelerates the motion. The camera took these 10 frames over a 10-minute period from 2:52 p.m. to 3:02 p.m. local solar time at the Phoenix site during Sol 94 (Aug. 29), the 94th Martian day since landing.

<- movie ->

Countdown to Phoenix landing with Canadian weather station

The Maple Leaf Alights on Mars - Phoenix Lander on the Red Planet

Sunday, May 25, 2008 The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) is hosting a media gathering at its space base in Saint Hubert, Quebec to celebrate the arrival of the Phoenix Lander on Mars. En Francais

The party in St Hubert starts at 7:30 pm EDT with a presentation and talk by Steve MacLean, CSA Chief Astronaut. Thanks to the live feed from Mission Control at the Jet Propulsion Lab in Arizona, participants in the CSA event will join millions worldwide watching the landing of this tough little scrapper of a lander.

Once grounded. Phoenix will deploy a Canadian weather station to record the daily weather of the Martian northern plains; its temperature, wind and barometric pressure and more .

Following the landing event, St Hubert attendees will view Mars from CSA's observatory. Information on the Phoenix Mission is available on the CSA Web site at www.space.gc.ca. Image courtesy University of the West of England