And it happened on the opposite side of the planet! I guess that's why it took five years to analyse the data: quake from 2021, article published last month: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-78193-6
The bit of mars that fascinates me is the Hellis Planitia[1] A huge hole roughly opposite the globe from the large volcano complex[2] coincidence.. I think not.
I am vaguely surprised it was not higher rated for a rover mission. 7k meters down should do something interesting to the atmosphere if nothing else.
Yeah it's the one place that crosses the triple point of water, not by a huge margin, but likely enough to trigger planetary protection concern.
But there's places like the araneiform terrain where you likely get much higher transient pressures, and maybe they create enough of a greenhouse effect to warm up before they burst through the CO2 ice crust. They'd be a great way for life to spread mechanically using those pressurized bursts.
I really hope we'll see humans on Mars in my lifetime. For all the amazing success that rovers had, starting with Spirit and Opportunity, and now with Curiosity and Perseverence, having a bloke with a shovel can likely be more productive in a few days than years of missions combined...
The recent findings about the dust being so fine it can penetrate the blood-brain barrier is a real concern though. The more we learn about the planet, the more it sounds pretty unsuitable for habitation.
The cosmic radiation alone poses a major problem, let alone the logistics of supplying water/air/food. I am much more optimistic for a research outpost on Luna.
Though the person you commented on didn't refer to habitation specifically I think, just humans on the surface.
I tend to agree with your thoughts on the moon. Realistically we should be looking at orbital manufacturing and refuelling in our local neighbourhood first and use Luna as a staging area for any deeper missions, of which I feel there's far more interesting features to look at (i.e. Titan, Europa etc)
I doubt it. Going to Mars just to enter orbit would probably require the same (or more) delta v as landing (because of aerobraking). And then you'd still have to resupply them, and that will certainly be more expensive. Your resupply missions now have to achieve orbit, and dock. You can get much cheaper "dumb" cargo to Mars by using "old" tech developed for the first rovers (parachutes + airbags).
And even then, again there's just something about a trained geologist being there, immersed in the thing, thinking on the spot, using a shovel that just can't be matched with robots.
Then you have all the ISRU (in situ resource utilisation) that you can take advantage of on Mars vs. in orbit around Mars. There have been experiments already demonstrating obtaining useful stuff (MOXIE got oxygen). And theoretically you can also make methane, you can melt water, etc.
The fact that they managed to narrow this down to a strike-slip event 20-40 km underground using data from a single seismometer is pretty impressive
And it happened on the opposite side of the planet! I guess that's why it took five years to analyse the data: quake from 2021, article published last month: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-78193-6
The bit of mars that fascinates me is the Hellis Planitia[1] A huge hole roughly opposite the globe from the large volcano complex[2] coincidence.. I think not.
I am vaguely surprised it was not higher rated for a rover mission. 7k meters down should do something interesting to the atmosphere if nothing else.
1. https://trek.nasa.gov/mars/#v=0.1&x=72.07800218650755&y=-42....
2. https://trek.nasa.gov/mars/#v=0.1&x=-116.4913302335018&y=16....
Yeah it's the one place that crosses the triple point of water, not by a huge margin, but likely enough to trigger planetary protection concern.
But there's places like the araneiform terrain where you likely get much higher transient pressures, and maybe they create enough of a greenhouse effect to warm up before they burst through the CO2 ice crust. They'd be a great way for life to spread mechanically using those pressurized bursts.
I wonder how long the conditions would need to persist for anything biological to actually take advantage of them
If there is life on Mars, it will be underground.
So if you can get 7km down without digging, that's the first place to look!
I really hope we'll see humans on Mars in my lifetime. For all the amazing success that rovers had, starting with Spirit and Opportunity, and now with Curiosity and Perseverence, having a bloke with a shovel can likely be more productive in a few days than years of missions combined...
The recent findings about the dust being so fine it can penetrate the blood-brain barrier is a real concern though. The more we learn about the planet, the more it sounds pretty unsuitable for habitation.
The cosmic radiation alone poses a major problem, let alone the logistics of supplying water/air/food. I am much more optimistic for a research outpost on Luna.
Though the person you commented on didn't refer to habitation specifically I think, just humans on the surface.
I tend to agree with your thoughts on the moon. Realistically we should be looking at orbital manufacturing and refuelling in our local neighbourhood first and use Luna as a staging area for any deeper missions, of which I feel there's far more interesting features to look at (i.e. Titan, Europa etc)
Would a remote controlled humanoid robot from an orbiting platform be a possible compromise?
I doubt it. Going to Mars just to enter orbit would probably require the same (or more) delta v as landing (because of aerobraking). And then you'd still have to resupply them, and that will certainly be more expensive. Your resupply missions now have to achieve orbit, and dock. You can get much cheaper "dumb" cargo to Mars by using "old" tech developed for the first rovers (parachutes + airbags).
And even then, again there's just something about a trained geologist being there, immersed in the thing, thinking on the spot, using a shovel that just can't be matched with robots.
Then you have all the ISRU (in situ resource utilisation) that you can take advantage of on Mars vs. in orbit around Mars. There have been experiments already demonstrating obtaining useful stuff (MOXIE got oxygen). And theoretically you can also make methane, you can melt water, etc.
If you were standing on the "walls" of the canyon, it would look like terrain with a 10%–15% slope. You wouldn't even notice it's a canyon.
Isn't a 15% slope really noticeable? Like it doesn't look like a mountain peak but it would be obvious which way was up
That's wild to think about. You could be standing inside the largest canyon in the solar system and have absolutely no idea
It's a bit steeper, much of the length of the canyon the incline is 35%-ish.
This report obviously landed in Randall Munroe’s inbox on release