Mars news

The Curiosity rover has captured images of highly unusual atmospheric phenomena on Mars unlike anything on Earth – clouds that form so high that they mostly consist of crystalized CO2 instead of water.

China’s Zhurong rover has successfully landed on the surface of Mars, according to state media, in the culmination of the country’s first independent mission to the Red Planet after the ship departed from Earth last summer.

Ingenuity, NASA’s robotic helicopter stationed on Mars, has traveled to a new ‘airfield’ on the Red Planet’s surface, straying several hundred feet from its original base of operations in its fifth successful flight.

NASA’s Ingenuity aircraft completed its longest and fastest mission on Sunday, breaking records on Mars and pioneering a new era of off-world spaceflight. Time is running out for the team to complete their final missions, however.

To celebrate its national Space Day, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) announced the name of its next Mars rover, Zhurong, after an ancient god of fire on Saturday.

Often criticized as a fantasist, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk gave a rather stark and grim assessment of the prospects facing future Mars colonists, saying “a bunch of people will probably die in the beginning.”