Category: Astronomy

At Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands, scientists have embarked on research to enhance space farming techniques, crucial for future human settlements on Mars. Exploring intercropping as a food production strategy in Martian colonies. “Future colonists on Mars will need to produce fresh food locally to acquire key nutrients lost in food dehydration, the…

NASA has selected nine companies to develop concepts that could aid agency science missions to Mars down the road. The agency is awarding each company between $200,000 and $300,000 for this early-stage work, with the goal of making robotic Mars exploration more efficient and more productive. “We’re in an exciting new era of space exploration,…

Manganese has been observed on Mars by the NASA Curiosity rover in multiple places, but a higher-than-usual amount has been detected in the Gale crater. The ChemCam instrument onboard the rover detected the deposits, which indicate that the sediments had formed in a river, delta, or near the shoreline of an ancient lake. These sedimentary rocks have larger…

For decades, scientists hunting for meteorites have known exactly where to go: the bottom of the world. Antarctica is a veritable treasure chest of space rocks, thanks to its shifting ice and relatively pristine surface. More than half the meteorites ever found have come from the frozen continent. But that may not hold for long.…