Mars Planet

Global warming on Mars? It turns out you don't need belching smokestacks and city-choking traffic to heat up a planet. Changes in surface reflectivity may also do the trick, according to research published Thursday in the journal Nature. The research team, composed of scientists from NASA's Ames Research Center in Northern California and the U.S. Geological Survey, compared images of Mars taken by the Viking missions in the 1970s to pictures taken a quarter century later by Mars Global Surveyor.

A command sent to the wrong computer address caused a cascade of events that led to the loss of the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft in November, NASA investigators reported Friday. The error by ground controllers in Denver caused the spacecraft to mistakenly think its solar panels were stuck. By trying to free them, one of its onboard batteries overheated, eventually causing a loss of power. The spacecraft, which had orbited Mars for 10 years, was given up for lost Jan. 28.

The European Space Agency is looking for 12 volunteers to spend up to 520 days in "extreme isolation and confinement" on a simulated mission to Mars. The volunteers will study the "human factor" of a trip to the Red Planet -- "a journey with no way out once the spaceship is on a direct path to Mars," the ESA said. The experiment will emphasize psychological factors, including stress resistance.

THE ruddy surface of the alien world unraveled before Ken Edgett's eyes in noodle-like strips. Each image from the camera aboard the Mars Global Surveyor covered a 2-mile-wide swath of dunes, rock valleys and jagged ribbons of carbon dioxide ice. Twelve orbits a day, for almost a decade. A total of 243,926 pictures of the Martian wasteland. Edgett, a bushy-haired, 6-foot-2 scientist, stared himself half-blind as he scanned the pictures from his office in an industrial park outside San Diego.

The Mars rover Opportunity is preparing to descend into the huge Victoria Crater, a trek from which it may not be able to return. The descent will allow the rover to examine the composition and texture of exposed materials in the crater's depths for clues about ancient, wet environments. But if a wheel fails, the craft will not be able to climb back out.

A major 3-week-old dust storm on Mars has paralyzed NASA twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity -- and it doesn't appear the storm will end anytime soon. "This is by far the worst storm the rovers have ever seen," said John Callas, project manager for the rovers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Canada Flintridge. The rovers, which rely on solar energy, must remain inactive when dust blocks out the sun. Every day, the rovers power up to measure how much light is getting through.

NASA's Phoenix spacecraft launched Saturday morning from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on a 10-month journey to the north pole of Mars, where it is expected to be the first craft to taste the water of another planet. The Delta II rocket carrying the 7-foot-tall lander lifted off at 5:26 a.m. on a scheduled 423million-mile journey that should deliver Phoenix to the Martian surface on May 25.

After surviving the harshest dust storm in its nearly four-year trek on Mars, the rover Opportunity got back to work Tuesday, dipping its toe into 260-foot-deep Victoria Crater. Opportunity rolled its six wheels about 10 feet into the crater, then backed out in a maneuver its handlers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge dubbed "the hokeypokey." As it backed out, Opportunity slipped on a sandy ripple at the crater's edge and halted, said rover project manager John Callas.

NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft has discovered entrances to seven possible caves on the slopes of a Martian volcano, researchers said Friday. Very dark, nearly circular features ranging in diameter from about 328 to 820 feet puzzled researchers who found them in images taken by NASA's Mars Odyssey and Mars Global Surveyor orbiters.

With their third Martian winter fast approaching, the twin rovers patrolling opposite sides of the Red Planet are showing distinct signs of age, even as they uncover fresh evidence that the planet was once hospitable to rudimentary life forms. In fact, Spirit made one of its most significant discoveries because of its deteriorating health.