Mars exploration

29 cards. Each one is a 40-second story with a five-minute read behind it.

1. Mars may have woken up from a billion-year slumberFor decades, scientists viewed Mars as a geologically dead world with a frozen atmosphere and solidified core. However, recent high-resolution imagery has revealed a startling shi…
2. The rover that lived twenty-five times longer than it was plannedNASA's Spirit rover was designed to survive for just 90 sols on the Martian surface. Instead, it endured six years of brutal conditions, traveling across the red planet to uncover…
3. The leopard-spotted rocks of Mars may hold the strongest evidence of life yetNASA’s Perseverance rover has discovered a complex rock in the Jezero Crater containing organic material and chemical clues. While headlines suggest a definitive discovery, the tr…
4. NASA's Perseverance Rover Just Heard Mars' First Lightning StrikeFor the first time in Martian exploration, we have audio evidence of lightning. This unexpected crackle provides a new window into the planet's atmosphere and its potential for fu…
5. Mars was once a world of rivers, lakes, and rainRecent discoveries have allowed scientists to reconstruct an ancient Martian landscape. This supercut explores what various rovers have found regarding the planet's water history …
6. Mars once hosted tropical-like rainfall and potential microbial lifeThe red planet was once a world of lush oases and persistent rain. New evidence from NASA's Perseverance rover suggests that millions of years of heavy rainfall may have sculpted …
7. A basketball-sized rock may reveal the secrets of Mars' interiorOne small rock on a rippled Martian plain is providing a massive geological breakthrough. While it looks unassuming, this specific specimen—dubbed "Marquette Island"—is offering N…
8. NASA's 2018 discovery of a hidden Martian lake may be a mythA liquid lake was long thought by researchers to exist under many thousands of feet of ice at the south pole of Mars. However, new radar data suggests we might be looking at somet…
9. Mars may have once hosted the chemical building blocks of lifeNASA's Perseverance rover has uncovered a record-breaking trove of complex carbon molecules in an ancient Martian riverbed. While carbon alone doesn't prove life ever existed, its…
10. Before it hit Mars, Curiosity took its first steps on EarthWatch the Mars Science Laboratory, Curiosity, roll across a clean room floor for the first time. This milestone moment captured the pride of the mission team before the rover's hi…
11. From Martian Gods to Dust Storms: 58 Years of Red Planet SecretsFor centuries, humans imagined Mars as a land of advanced civilizations and divine power. It took nearly sixty years of robotic exploration to replace those myths with a harsher r…
12. The Russian spacecraft that became a ghost in Earth's orbitFobos-Grunt was intended to be a historic first: returning macroscopic soil samples from Mars' moon, Phobos. Instead, it became a high-tech wanderer. After a failed engine burn, t…
13. A kitchen table model helped launch a mission to find alien lifeIn 1997, a young girl built a cardboard model of a Mars lander on her mother's kitchen table. This humble prototype eventually evolved into Beagle 2, a sophisticated spacecraft de…
14. The spacecraft that has spent a quarter-century orbiting the Red PlanetThe 2001 Mars Odyssey remains the longest-running operation currently stationed on the planet. Launched in 2001, this robotic explorer has completed over 100,000 orbits, serving a…
15. Mars may still host liquid water flows in its warm seasonsFor decades, Mars was considered a frozen desert where water vanished billions of years ago. However, new data from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter suggests the Red Planet migh…
16. Mars' mysterious yardangs may hold secrets from ancient volcanic eruptionsDeep within Gale Crater, a rover is ascending a mountain of stacked geological layers to solve a Martian mystery. Scientists are eyeing a peculiar, tilted formation that looks alm…
17. A journey to the oldest rocks on the Martian surfaceNASA's Opportunity rover has reached the rim of Endeavour crater. This trek is significant because it provides access to geological formations that predate any other rocks the rov…
18. A 14-mile crater holds rocks older than anything seen beforeAfter an eleven-mile trek, NASA's Opportunity rover has reached the rim of Endeavour crater. This journey is significant because the geological features here offer a rare window i…
19. Mars rocks hold rounded secrets of a vigorous ancient riverCuriosity rover has uncovered something rare on the Red Planet: well-rounded pebbles cemented into hard rock layers. Unlike the jagged debris covering most of the surface, these s…
20. NASA's Perseverance Rover is Unlocking Mars' Ancient Water SecretsThe Red Planet is revealing a complex history of water systems that were once active on its surface. By exploring the inner edge of the Jezero Crater, NASA's Perseverance rover is…
21. The Yardangs: Mars' Mysterious Plastered Cliffs and Volcanic SecretsNASA's Curiosity rover has captured a stunning, blue-hued panorama of wind-carved Martian cliffs. These features, known as yardangs, appear almost as if they were plastered onto t…
22. How Mars lost its atmosphere and the secrets of its watery pastMars is a dry, rocky, and bitter cold world, yet it may have once held water. NASA’s MAVEN mission aims to solve this mystery by studying the Martian upper atmosphere to understan…
23. Engineering the journey to Mars with the ExoMars projectExplore the complexities of space exploration through the eyes of Thomas Walloschek, a propulsion and structural systems engineer at the European Space Agency working on the ExoMa…
24. How did Mars lose its atmosphere to the void of space?Mars was once a world with a much denser atmosphere. To understand how it became a frozen desert, NASA sent MAVEN to study the planet's upper atmosphere. By measuring how gases es…
25. How NASA plans to scout the ideal locations for human Mars missionsDiscover how NASA is organizing a specialized workshop to identify safe landing zones and exploration areas on the Red Planet for future human crews.
26. How NASA masters the art of landing spacecraft on the Red PlanetInvestigate the intricate systems employed for the Curiosity rover's Martian touchdown and learn about ongoing advancements for the secure, streamlined delivery of upcoming, heavi…
27. How NASA tests supersonic parachutes for landing heavy payloads on the surface of MarsLanding heavy spacecraft on Mars requires surviving extreme supersonic speeds in a thin atmosphere. To perfect this, NASA uses sounding rockets to launch experimental parachutes i…
28. A crushed rock on Mars revealed something never seen beforeWhen the Curiosity rover accidentally crushed a rock, it uncovered pure, yellow sulfur crystals. This video features Dr. Ashwin Vasavacia discussing this unexpected discovery and …
29. Tracing the ancient, water-carved scars of the Martian landscapeA massive 1,300 km-long channel reveals a violent, watery past. Using high-resolution stereo data from the Mars Express mission, we can now fly over the rugged terrain of Xanthe T…

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