NASA specialists have found a way to enable the Curiosity rover to perform several tasks simultaneously. This will allow for maximum efficiency in using its energy source and extend its service life.

Curiosity’s energy budget

Curiosity recently reached a region filled with cell-like formations. These hardened ridges are believed to have been created by underground waters billions of years ago. Spanning many kilometers in this part of Mount Sharp, these formations may shed light on whether hypothetical microbial life could have survived in the depths of Mars billions of years ago, extending the planet’s habitability until it began to dry out. 

Performing this detective work requires a great deal of energy. In addition to moving and extending its robotic arm to study rocks and boulders, Curiosity is equipped with a variety of scientific instruments and heaters that require power.

Other NASA missions, such as the Spirit and Opportunity rovers and the InSight lander, relied on solar panels to recharge their batteries. However, this technology always carries the risk of insufficient sunlight. Therefore, engineers equipped Curiosity with a radioisotope generator (RITEG). Thanks to this, the rover is not affected by changes in lighting conditions. The downside is that because plutonium decays over time, charging Curiosity’s batteries takes longer each year, leaving less energy for scientific research.

More effective science

NASA engineers generally send Curiosity a list of tasks to complete one by one before the rover ends its day and takes a break to recharge. In 2021, the team began investigating whether it would be safe to combine two or three of the rover’s tasks, thereby reducing its active time.

For example, the Curiosity radio regularly sends data and images to a passing orbital spacecraft, which transmits them to Earth. Can the Mars rover communicate with the orbital spacecraft while moving, shifting its robotic manipulator, or taking images? Combining tasks can shorten each day’s plan, requiring less time with heaters and equipment turned on and ready for use, which reduces energy consumption. Testing has shown that Curiosity is capable of doing all this safely.

Another technique is to allow Curiosity to decide when it needs to rest if it finishes its tasks early. Engineers always overestimate the duration of daily activities in case of unforeseen circumstances. Now, if Curiosity completes these actions ahead of schedule, it will go to sleep earlier.

By allowing the rover to manage its own rest time, it is possible to reduce the charging time before the next day’s schedule. Even actions that reduce the time required to complete a single task by just 10 or 20 minutes can have a significant long-term effect, maximizing the service life of the RITEG for further scientific research and exploration. 

A lot remains to be done

Engineers are implementing new features in Curiosity based on their experience operating it. Several mechanical issues required a redesign of the sample collection method using a drill bit mounted on a robotic arm, and movement capabilities were improved through software updates. When the color filter stopped rotating on one of the two cameras mounted on Mastcam, Curiosity’s rotating “head,” the team devised a workaround that allowed them to capture the same beautiful panoramas. 

NASA has also developed an algorithm to reduce damage to Curiosity’s wheels, which are worn down from hitting rocks. Although engineers are closely monitoring any new damage, they are not concerned. After 35 kilometers of driving and extensive research, it became clear that, despite wear and tear, the wheels are capable of serving for many more years. In combination, these measures allow Curiosity to operate as actively as before.

• According to JPL

The Perseverance rover has discovered unusual formations that are almost perfectly spherical in shape. According to scientists, they were formed as a result of the cooling of molten material.

Spherical particles are not what you would expect to find in Martian soil. However, two decades ago, the Opportunity rover discovered spherical hematite formations (unofficially nicknamed “blueberries”) near its landing site on the Meridiani Plateau.

Now, the Perseverance rover has also managed to detect spherical particles. The discovery was made in an area unofficially named Witch Hazel Hill. Spherical formations are embedded in the bedrock and scattered throughout the area. Perseverance studied them by taking a series of images and measuring their elemental composition.

Despite their external similarity to “blueberries,” these spherical particles have a completely different composition and, probably, origin. The fragments found by Opportunity consisted of hematite minerals, and they’re thought to have formed in groundwater-rich sediments way back in Mars’ past.

For comparison, these spherical particles are composed of basalt and were probably formed as a result of a meteorite impact or volcanic eruption. When a meteorite hits the surface of Mars, it can melt rock and spray droplets of molten rock into the air. These droplets can cool quickly, solidify into spherical particles, and fall as rain onto the surrounding area. Alternatively, spherical particles could have formed from molten lava during the eruption.

The Perseverance team intends to continue searching for answers to the question of the origin of these spherical particles. If they were formed as a result of an ancient impact, they can tell us about the composition of the impactor and shed light on the formation of craters in the early history of Mars. If they were caused by a volcanic eruption, they may preserve traces of past volcanic activity in the area around Jezero crater. In any case, these spherical particles are a reminder of a dynamic period in the distant past of the Red Planet.

Earlier, we reported on how Perseverance encountered a stubborn rock during its “battle.”

• According to NASA

August 5, 2025, will be one of the shortest days in history. Meanwhile, scientists are at a loss as to the reasons for the mysterious acceleration of the Earth.

The period of the Earth’s rotation around its axis (one full rotation of 360 degrees relative to the stars) lasts 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4.1 seconds. This is known as a sidereal day. It explains why stars and planets rise in the east about four minutes earlier each day, and why the night sky changes depending on the season. After all, the Earth moves in its orbit around the Sun while simultaneously rotating around its axis.

But the fact is that we live according to the solar day, not the sidereal day. It is measured from noon to noon and lasts exactly 24 hours (86,400 seconds). Since official records began in 1973, the length of daylight has steadily increased, mainly due to the Moon. As it moves around the Earth, it creates friction, causing its orbit to shift further away from our planet. At the same time, the Earth’s rotational energy is transferred to the Moon, which leads to a slowdown in the Earth’s rotation and, consequently, to an increase in the length of days.

However, this situation has changed in recent years. After decades of slowing down, our planet’s rotation has accelerated — and researchers cannot provide a clear explanation for why. In 2025, they predicted three dates when the solar day on Earth would be shorter than 24 hours: July 9 (1.23 milliseconds shorter than 24 hours), July 22 (1.36 milliseconds shorter), and August 5 (1.25 milliseconds shorter). The title of the shortest day in history is currently held by July 5, 2024. On that day, the day was 1.66 milliseconds shorter than 24 hours.

A difference of just 1.25 milliseconds from the 86,400-second mark may seem insignificant, but it is indicative of global processes that we are not yet able to understand. According to one theory, global warming is to blame. On the other hand, the acceleration is caused by the slowing down of the liquid part of the Earth’s core, as a result of which the rest of the planet rotates faster.

Regardless of the reasons for the acceleration, according to scientists, if the current trend continues until 2029, then, for the first time in history, a so-called negative leap second may be added to compensate for the deviation.

• According to Space.com

Astronomers have published a new image taken by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). It shows one of the most iconic regions of the sky, made famous by the Hubble Telescope.

Famous Hubble Telescope image

In 1995, scientists conducted an experiment: they pointed the Hubble telescope at a small and, as previously thought, virtually deserted area of the sky. The results of ten days of imaging amazed the researchers. It turned out that there were actually thousands of distant galaxies there. The experiment clearly demonstrated that the Universe contains orders of magnitude more galaxies than previously thought.

In 2003, astronomers repeated the experiment, pointing Hubble at another part of the sky in the constellation Fornax. By that time, the maintenance expedition had installed new instruments on the telescope, significantly increasing its capabilities.

Once again, the telescope did not disappoint astronomers. The famous image, dubbed the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, captured approximately 10,000 galaxies. The closest ones are about a billion light-years from Earth, and the farthest ones are at the edge of the observable Universe. They existed just 800 million years after the Big Bang.

A new look at the Hubble Ultra Deep Field

Twenty years later, astronomers decided to remake the Hubble Ultra Deep Field using JWST. It conducted observations using the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) and the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam). In total, the filming took 100 hours.

The published image shows the area known as the MIRI Deep Imaging Survey. It represents one of the deepest views of the Universe ever obtained. In total, JWST has detected over 2,500 sources in this tiny patch of sky. Among them are hundreds of extremely red galaxies, some of which are likely massive systems filled with dust clouds, or galaxies with old stars that formed at the dawn of the Universe. Thanks to JWST’s high resolution, even in the mid-infrared range, researchers can distinguish the structures of many of these galaxies, shedding light on their growth and evolution.

The colors in the image correspond to different wavelengths of infrared light. Orange and red correspond to the longest wavelengths. Galaxies of these colors have characteristics such as high dust concentration, abundant star formation, or active galactic nuclei.

Small greenish-white galaxies are particularly distant and have a high redshift. This shifts their light spectrum to the peak wavelengths of the data, which are shown in white and green. Most of the galaxies in the photo do not have characteristics that amplify the mid-infrared range, so they are brightest in the shorter near-infrared wavelengths, which are shown in blue and cyan.

• According to Esawebb

Martian glaciers consist mainly of pure water ice. This is good news for future explorers of the Red Planet, who will be able to use them as a source of water, air, and rocket fuel components.

Scientists have long known that there are dust-covered glaciers on the slopes of many Martian mountains. Initially, it was believed that they consisted mainly of dust and rocks and contained only 30% ice. However, research conducted in recent decades has cast doubt on this picture, showing that at least some of them are cleaner than previously thought. Now scientists have confirmed this, establishing that glaciers across the planet actually contain more than 80% water ice.

The discovery was made using the radar instrument (SHARAD) installed on board the MRO spacecraft. An international team of researchers decided to study how quickly radar waves pass through glaciers and how quickly they scatter. This data could shed light on the ratio of rock to ice.

For their research, the team selected five sites on Mars. Analysis of the collected SHARAD data revealed a surprising uniformity in the purity of these glaciers, which consist of at least 80% ice. It is covered with a layer of dust and soil.

Researchers emphasize that the composition of glaciers is the same even in different hemispheres of Mars.This indicates that the environmental conditions in which the ice formed and remained intact were probably the same across the entire planet. Ice could have formed as a result of atmospheric precipitation (snowfall) or as a result of direct condensation due to an increase in frost. At the same time, it does not appear that ice could form as a result of water vapor from the atmosphere diffusing into subsurface layers and forming ground ice, which occurs in regions such as Alaska and Antarctica under terrestrial conditions. 

The discovery plays an important role in understanding Mars’ past and the processes taking place on it. In addition, it can assist in planning future manned missions, for which accessible ice deposits may become a critical component of success.

We previously reported that brines may exist on the surface of Mars.

• According to Space.com

It is believed that, whatever the star, there is a zone around it in which a planet similar in mass to Earth will be Earth-like. But let’s see what worlds orbiting red dwarfs and blue supergiants might be like.

Zone of life

Often, when discussing the possibility of life near other stars, one hears that some of them are too dim for this, and some are too hot. In reality, the brightness of a star only affects the distance at which a planet must be located for life to exist on it.

It is a whole range of distances between which water can exist in a liquid state. It is also called the Goldilocks Zone. Simply falling within a certain part of it does not determine the climate on the planet. Important factors that influence it also include the mass of the celestial body, the eccentricity of its orbit, the tilt of its axis of rotation, the thickness of its atmosphere, and so on.

So, is a star merely a source of light, whose characteristics determine only the length of the year on a planet where life is possible? In general, the answer to this question is “no”, but it is worth considering each case individually.

Stars lighter than the Sun

The Sun is considered a star of average diameter, mass, and luminosity. If you look at the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, it is difficult to disagree with this. Our star is located right in the center of the main sequence. But this is only true if we do not take into account the number of stars of a certain size in the Galaxy. More than 90% of them are smaller than the Sun. Stars larger than it are much rarer.

Excluding brown dwarfs, which occupy an intermediate position between stars and planets, the smallest stars are red dwarfs, such as Proxima Centauri, Wolf 359, Ross 154, and others close to Earth but invisible to the naked eye. You can read more about the problem of Earth-like worlds in their orbits in this article.

It should be noted that the existence of these worlds as a result of tidal locking of the “day” and “night” hemispheres is not their main feature. The fact is that this may not be the case if the eccentricity of the planet’s orbit is large enough. However, long days lasting 2-3 Earth days are inevitable.

The constant threat of powerful flares is also not mandatory. Most planets in red dwarf systems do indeed experience them, but among these stars, there are many in which such activity is not observed. This is especially true for those who are significantly older.

However, there is one feature that is present in all planets, more or less similar to Earth, that orbit red dwarfs, and that is an extremely short year, which can last 10-20 days. As a result, there should be virtually no change in seasons.

There are two mechanisms for changing the illumination of a particular area on a planet during its rotation around a star: a change in distance from the star due to the large eccentricity of the orbit, and the inclination of the axis of rotation. A combination of these two factors is also possible. But whatever it may be on a particular red dwarf, significant long-term weather fluctuations will not occur.

For this, water and air have too much thermal inertia. Combined with a very long or absent cycle of change for day and night, this will result in a very even climate. The inhabitants of such a planet may not know what winter and summer are.

Between red dwarfs and yellow stars, similar to our Sun, are orange stars. The luminosity of these stars is tens of percent of the Sun’s, and there are also many of them in the Galaxy. Examples include Epsilon Eridani, Epsilon Indi, 61 Cygni, and 70 Ophiuchi.

Orange dwarfs, like yellow ones, end their existence by first turning into red giants and then into white dwarfs.

However, no orange dwarf in the Milky Way has reached this stage of its existence yet, because it takes between 15 and 30 billion years to do so. It is precisely because of the combination of the long stable existence of Goldilocks Zone planets and their prevalence in the universe that planets near these stars are considered the best candidates for the search for extraterrestrial life.

The tidal forces of their stars still exert a strong influence on them, causing a slowdown in their daily rotation. However, to cause tidal capture, the day must be “stretched” to dozens of Earth days, which can only be achieved over many billions of years.

Orange dwarfs also have increased flare activity compared to the Sun. However, planets in the “habitable zone” in their case are still much further from the star than in the case of red dwarfs. And the explosions on their surface are not as large-scale and frequent as in the latter. Therefore, the probability of serious losses of the atmosphere and hydrosphere is quite low.

Another key feature of the climate on these planets is their short year. With a duration of 40-200 days, fluctuations in light caused by orbital eccentricity and axial tilt become more noticeable. However, if only 30-50 Earth days pass between the days of minimum and maximum insolation, the difference between summer and winter is relatively small. Most likely, over billions of years of evolution, life on these worlds has primarily adapted to daily temperature changes rather than annual ones.

Stars heavier than the Sun

As for stars whose size, mass, and luminosity exceed that of the Sun, the situation is completely different. The first thing to realize is that there are not many such stars. Within a radius of 50 light-years from the Sun, there are barely two dozen of them, compared to several hundred red and orange dwarfs.

There are no problems with tidal braking and flares in the Goldilocks Zone of these stars. Their luminosity, which is significantly greater than that of the Sun, means that they must be much further away than Earth is from the Sun. Accordingly, a year on them must last from several tens of percent to several times longer than on our home planet.

However, there are most likely no planets with a developed biosphere and a year 10 times longer than Earth’s in space. The fact is that even yellowish stars of spectral class F, whose mass is 30-60% greater than that of the Sun, complete their entire evolutionary path to becoming red giants in only 3-5 billion years.

Life on Earth needed a comparable amount of time to evolve not only humans, but also terrestrial multicellular organisms. Of course, we do not know to what extent the pace of biological evolution on our planet is typical for the entire Milky Way galaxy. But it is most likely to assume that this time does not differ much from a certain average.

However, the star does not instantly turn into a red giant. Its luminosity increases gradually. For example, our own Sun could render Earth uninhabitable in a billion years. In larger stars, these processes occur much faster.

That is, most likely, regardless of how large the axial tilt and orbital eccentricity of worlds orbiting stars brighter than the Sun are, these planets experience significant temperature fluctuations throughout the year. It is highly unlikely that multicellular life or life on land exists on them. And the atmosphere is most likely unsuitable for breathing, despite the presence of entirely terrestrial oceans and temperatures acceptable for human existence.

In general, judging by everything, our star is close to the upper limit of mass, beyond which complex life simply does not have time to develop. For example, large hot stars such as Sirius, Vega, and Achernar have a lifespan of just a few hundred million years. If there are planets there, then only very primitive life could have emerged on them.

Planets near older stars

However, all of the above cases involve planets orbiting stars that are on the main sequence, i.e., undergoing a relatively stable period of their evolution. However, we may find a planet orbiting a giant or red giant at a distance that can be considered the Goldilocks Zone. They will have sufficiently long years and, in principle, may have a temperature regime conducive to the existence of life, but it must be remembered that in the past, these planets were analogous to Mars or Jupiter’s moons.

That is, for billions of years, if life existed on them, it barely flickered somewhere beneath the surface. And then, over a relatively short period of time, the influx of heat increased significantly, and conditions on them became quite favorable.

Will we see a world with forests, meadows, and perhaps cities living under a big red sun? This is a very interesting question, but we do not know the general answer. It depends on two factors: how complex organisms can arise in conditions of insufficient sunlight and, possibly, liquid water. So far, we cannot rule out either the possibility that even primitive multicellular organisms could develop in such conditions or that nothing more primitive than bacteria could emerge.

On the other hand, much depends on the stage of stellar evolution at which the planet entered the Goldilocks Zone. If it is transforming into a subgiant, then in the case of stars comparable to our Sun, this process can take hundreds of millions of years, during which the surface temperature will rise quite slowly.

If by that time the evolution of life had already made some progress, then this time would be sufficient for life to give rise to a developed terrestrial biosphere. For example, on Earth, the path from primitive marine invertebrates to monkeys living in forests took only half a billion years.

However, if the planet became warm enough for life only after its sun turned into a red giant, the situation is much worse. Here, too, the changes will take millions of years, but the transition from an icy world to a scorching one can happen extremely quickly. And there will be practically no time for evolution.

White dwarfs may also have a Goldilocks Zone. However, it is important to remember that it is located where the outer layers of the star used to be during its red giant or even subgiant phase. Can a planet survive this? Can a new world form around a white dwarf?

Science does not provide definitive conclusions on this matter, but it is more likely that the answer to the first question is no rather than yes, and to the second question is yes rather than no. In other words, we are very likely to find a planet in the Goldilocks Zone of a white dwarf, but water is unlikely, although anything is possible. And it is highly doubtful that there is any life there. As for black holes and neutron stars, planets may exist in their orbits. But most likely, high levels of radiation make life on them impossible.

It may seem that truly Earth-like planets can only exist in the orbits of a small number of stars and that their diversity is limited. But in fact, this is not the case. Even what has been described means that there are millions of planets in the Galaxy, some of which may seem incredible to us.

In the 1960s, Freeman Dyson proposed the idea of a hypothetical astro-structure in the form of a sphere that an advanced civilization could surround its star with in order to collect maximum energy. It was named a Dyson sphere. Later, this design was reimagined as a Dyson swarm — a bunch of space stations whose orbits are coordinated to avoid crashing into each other. 

Despite the fact that scientists have not yet been able to find traces of such astro-structures in reality, the concept still attracts considerable interest. British scientist Brian C. Lacki from the Breakthrough Listen project wondered if these structures could outlive their creators. How long can the Dyson swarm survive without maintenance and control?

Artist's depiction of a Dyson swarm. Credit: Vedexent at Wikipedia Commons 

During the simulation, Lacki calculated that for the smallest swarm around a sun-like star, consisting of 340 elements, the average time between collisions among the elements would be one million years. However, since several collisions will occur well before the median time, a Kessler syndrome-like “cascade” effect, in which the elements of the swarm will be destroyed in a series of collisions with each other, could occur in just 41,000 years. That’s not much by astronomical standards.

The time required for cascading destruction of the cluster increases significantly with increasing star radius. For a red giant with a mass equal to that of the Sun and a radius 25 times greater than the Sun’s radius, it could be 5.3 billion years, with a minimum swarm consisting of 4,800 elements. In contrast, a swarm around a small red dwarf, whose mass and radius will be 0.2 and 0.1 times that of the Sun, will disintegrate in just four months.

{ https://universemagazine.com/en/articles-en/ }

The US Department of Defense’s secret X-37B spaceplane is preparing for its eighth orbital flight in August 2025. This mission carries two key experiments aimed at improving space communications and navigation. The US Space Force emphasizes that this research is critical to ensuring the security and sustainability of American orbital systems.

“Our goal is to make the combined forces more cohesive, resilient, and ready to act in any conditions,” said General Chance Saltzman, Chief of Space Operations. “This is how we protect our country’s interests in space.”

Created by aviation giant Boeing, the X-37B has become a unique space laboratory for the Pentagon and NASA, testing technologies and maneuvers out of the public eye. Although many details remain secret, the information policy regarding spaceplane missions is gradually becoming more transparent. 

Laser bridge over Earth

One of the mission’s flagship experiments is the demonstration of laser communication. The X-37B is designed to interact with commercial satellite networks in low Earth orbit no higher than 2,000 km above the Earth. Laser data transmission promises much higher transmission speeds and increased security compared to conventional radio waves. The key advantage is the elimination of the “point of failure.” The use of an extensive network of relay satellites makes the entire US space architecture significantly more resilient to failures or attacks.

Quantum compass without GPS

The second groundbreaking experiment is the world’s most powerful quantum inertial sensor in space. This device is designed to accurately determine the position and movement of the aircraft without the need for external systems such as GPS.

“This technology is indispensable where GPS is unavailable, which increases the resilience of our navigation against potential threats,” explains Space Force. Quantum sensors open the way not only for protecting orbital vehicles, but also for long-distance interplanetary missions and research in near-lunar space, where traditional global positioning systems are ineffective. 

Launch and prospects

The launch will take place from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The specific duration of the mission has not yet been disclosed. But the previous, seventh flight lasted a record 908 days, or about 2.5 years. At that time, the X-37B successfully demonstrated aerodynamic braking to change its orbit with minimal fuel consumption.

Operational control of the mission is carried out by the Fifth Space Operations Squadron in partnership with the Space Rapid Capabilities Office. This flight is another step in utilizing the unique potential of the X-37B to test future technologies.

{ https://universemagazine.com/en/articles-en/ }

One of the biggest scientific challenges of exploring the Solar System is the possibility of life on Mars. However, a significant number of earthlings are already convinced that it exists there. Let’s try to figure out why this is the case.

Scientists are often asked whether they have finally recognized the fact that life exists on Mars. After all, the press has provided a lot of “evidence”, informing the public about mysterious canals, pyramids, the face of the Sphinx, and doors of obviously artificial origin.

Despite all the refutations, including photos taken by automated devices, people stubbornly continue to believe that there is something on the Red Planet. And the explanation for this fervent belief is historical. After all, the existence of Martians is a modern mythology that has been formed over several centuries.

It all started in the 17th century, when scientists finally accepted the idea that other planets in the Solar System were almost the same as Earth. None of the astronomers of the time knew for sure whether the similarity was limited to the spherical shape or whether there were seas, forests, and meadows there as well.

The idea that life and even intelligent beings existed on other planets in the Solar System and on the Moon was quite acceptable. But Mars showed the greatest signs of resemblance to Earth. In 1644, the Jesuit astronomer Daniello Bartoli reported that the surface of this planet was heterogeneous, with light and dark spots. Other scientists soon confirmed this.

In 1659, the Dutch astronomer Christian Huygens attempted to make the first map of Martian spots. Among other things, it showed the dark area of Syrtis Major. Now, scientists know that it is a huge volcanic plateau covered with dark ash. At the time, it looked like a sea or ocean, so it was named after a bay near the modern coast of Libya.

Huygens was the first to see on Mars something similar to the polar caps on Earth and found that the period of the planet’s axial rotation was approximately 24 hours. A few years later, other astronomers determined the length of a Martian day to be 24 hours and 40 minutes, which is only three minutes longer than the real thing. All this indicated that the Red Planet is extremely similar to ours.

In the 18th century, the exploration of many planets put an end to the idea of life there. But the opposite was true of Mars. Confidence was reinforced, in particular, by observations of changes in the polar caps, which indicated that there was a change of seasons there, similar to the Earth’s. Even such an authority on astronomy as William Herschel argued in 1781 that Martian inhabitants must be in situations similar to ours.

Myth 1: Martian canals are man-made objects of an extinct civilization

However, the main thing was yet to come. With the advent of more powerful telescopes in the 19th century, scientists were able to see the surface of Mars more clearly, so its maps became much more detailed.

In 1858, the Italian astronomer Angelo Secchi saw a network of lines on the planet’s surface that he called “canali”. In his understanding, this could mean any strait or body of water. A little earlier, he also discovered a spot on Mars that he thought was a cloud.

Astronomers were finding more and more evidence that Mars was indeed similar to Earth. In 1866, spectroscopic studies revealed the presence of water vapor in its atmosphere. At the same time, interest in scientific research, including astronomical research, was growing worldwide. So, when Giovanni Schiaparelli reported the discovery of the canals again in 1877, the world press picked up on it as a sensation and spread the belief that civilization did exist on the neighboring planet.

However, the scientific community at the time had no confidence in this. The lines on Mars were visible. But not all researchers considered them to be engineering structures. Scientists became less certain in 1892 when new spectroscopic studies revealed that the conclusion about the presence of water vapor in the atmosphere of the Red Planet was incorrect, suggesting it was more akin to the Moon.

However, it was in the 1890s that the prominent astronomer and Solar System exploration enthusiast Percival Lowell advocated the idea that intelligent life exists on Mars. Based on the fact that the Martian climate is arid, he hypothesized that an advanced civilization there had begun to build canals to provide itself with water. The version was quite logical and saved the myth of the nearest extraterrestrial civilization for many decades.

However, in the scientific world, the assumption of Mars’ habitability did not stand up to criticism. In 1907, the prominent biologist Alfred Wallace published a paper in which he not only pointed out the absence of water vapor in the Martian atmosphere but also showed that astronomers had overestimated the temperature of the planet’s surface. Wallace argued that the atmospheric pressure there was too low for water to exist in a liquid state. In the end, he became one of the first scientists to depict Mars as we know it today.

t the same time, in 1903, experiments were conducted that showed that in a chaotic image of spots, people could see straight lines due to an optical illusion. And in 1909, new images of Mars did not confirm the presence of canals.

Myth 2: Martians with big heads

However, in the mass consciousness, the Martian civilization continued to exist thanks to the development of science fiction, which paid special attention to Mars. The most important work of that time about Martians was the novel The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells, published in 1897, at the very peak of Lowell’s theories.

Wells depicted the inhabitants of Mars who decided to conduct a “special military operation” on Earth, based on their ideas about evolution. The writer suggested that the Mars civilization is much older than the Earth’s. Therefore, local intelligent beings were originally humanoids, but evolved. For humans, the main organ is the brain, which thinks, and the hand, which does something. According to H.G. Wells, they were the ones that had to evolve, and everything else had to be reduced.

In the novel, Martians are described as octopuses with large heads and no digestive system. The explanations given by the writer seemed so successful that they are still used by authors of science fiction and conspiracy theories to describe typical aliens.

A large, naked head with large eyes, a body that can be disregarded because it no longer performs any useful functions, and long, flexible fingers that are convenient for pressing keys to destroy enemies – this image is thanks to Wells.

Myth 3: The Martian “sphinx” and the pyramids

In 1965, Mariner 4 flew by Mars and showed that the planet was dry and cold and had no canals. And in 1971, Mariner 9 entered orbit around it, mapped its surface, and finally buried all ideas of a developed Martian civilization.

However, supporters of this theory found new “evidence”. On June 25, 1976, the Viking 1 spacecraft took an orbital image of a small region in the northern hemisphere of Mars that stands out for its albedo. This term refers to the ability of a surface to reflect light; the higher it is, the whiter and more brilliant it appears.

Later, the area was named Cydonia, after an ancient Greek polis located on the island of Crete. This region consists of three very different parts. The first of them is the Cydonia Colls, an area where small hills meet. But the Labyrinth of Cydonia is a chaotic jumble of valleys that intersect at different angles. The landscape of the Table Mountains of Cydonia is predominantly large elevations with flat tops and steep slopes.

t was in the latter’s image that scientists noticed something resembling a human face pointing upward. Everyone was immediately struck by the similarity of this object to the Egyptian Sphinx, so they began to call it that. Soon after, the researchers found another photo showing the Martian “sphinx” from a completely different angle, which allegedly proved that it was not an optical illusion. The face was gigantic. Its length reached two kilometers, so it was a sign of the high development of the civilization that created it.

In addition, a few kilometers from the “sphinx,” they saw something very similar to regular pyramids. The press started talking about how these were the very remains of a Martian civilization that had died out many thousands of years ago. For a long time, there were no cameras that could take new photographs of the area, and newspapers and magazines published articles about the mysterious “city” of Cydonia for almost two decades in a row. Some people even “saw” a stone tear on the face of the Martian “sphinx” and began to freely interpret its meaning.

It was only in 2001 that the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft took a new photo with much better resolution than Viking I. It clearly shows that what was thought to be a giant face carved out of stone is just a flat-topped hill, like many landforms around it. And the pyramids turned out to be sharp rocks.

Are the Martian myths over?

With the advent of high-quality images of the Red Planet’s surface taken by spacecraft in areocentric orbit, and then by rovers, talk of any traces of civilization began to subside. It is hard to talk about a great civilization of the past when almost the entire surface of Mars has been photographed and no mysterious ruins have been found there. However, this does not mean that Martian myths have disappeared forever.

People like to invent beautiful fairy tales. The story of the Martian “door” proves this. In 2022, one of the images taken by the Curiosity rover showed something that looked like a rectangular passage in the Martian rocks. Sensation lovers immediately began to hypothesize about the entrance to the dungeon, where anything could be, up to and including live Wellsian octopuses.

The scientists quickly reassured everyone: The “doors” turned out to be just cracks on which shadows fall in such a way that they appear to be completely flat. However, this is not the last time that enthusiasts have found “indisputable” evidence of the existence of intelligent life on Mars. The hoaxes will stop only after someone settles there, for example, humans themselves.

• This article was published in Universe Space Tech magazine #1 (190) 2024. You can buy this issue in the electronic version in our store.

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The Moon, our natural satellite, has not always illuminated Earth’s sky. Scientists have long believed that it formed after a catastrophic collision between the young Earth and the protoplanet Theia about 4.5 billion years ago. However, new research presented at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference has shifted that date even further back in time. 

Hypothesis of a giant collision

The theory is that Theia, the size of Mars, crashed into Earth, ejecting millions of tons of molten rock into space. These debris later combined to form the Moon, explaining its similarity to Earth’s composition and lack of its own core. But when exactly did this event take place? Estimates ranged from 4.35 to 4.52 billion years, with discrepancies attributed to more recent geologic processes like the formation of the Aitken Basin.

Key in the moon rocks

To solve the mystery, a team of scientists examined ferroan anorthosites (FAN), the oldest known lunar rocks. They used the radioactive decay of rubidium-87 into strontium-87, which “solidified” in these rocks after they crystallized. Thermionization mass spectrometry was used for the analysis: samples were heated to 1000°C, studying the ionized particles.

Five of the eight samples, including one 4.36 billion years old, showed stable isotope ratios, indicating that they formed immediately after the collision. The other three probably underwent chemical changes later. By modeling different collision scenarios, the scientists obtained a new date of 4.502 ± 0.021 billion years ago. That’s only 65 million years later than the birth of the Solar System!

Artemis will find the exact answer

The exact time of the moon’s formation will help us understand how the planets formed and when conditions for life appeared on Earth. Despite the errors, this work opens the way to refined models where all parameters of the space catastrophe are taken into account. Who knows – perhaps the next samples from the Artemis mission will reveal new details of this impressive story.

Do you know that the Moon moves away from the Earth by 3.8 cm every year? This means that billions of years from now, our descendants will see much less of it.

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