Mars rover da ESA

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/mars-rover-esa-exomars-name-rosalind-franklin-european-space-agency-a8767471.html

NASA, o astronauta da Apolo 8 e Marte

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46364179

Citando:
""Nasa couldn't get to the Moon today. They're so ossified... Nasa has turned into a jobs programme... many of the centres are mainly interested in keeping busy and you don't see the public support other than they get the workers their pay and their congressmen get re-elected."

Anders is also critical of the decision to focus on near-Earth orbit exploration after the completion of the Apollo programme in the 1970s. "I think the space shuttle was a serious error. It hardly did anything except have an exciting launch, but it never lived up to its promise," he said.

"The space station is only there because you had a shuttle, and vice-versa. Nasa really mismanaged the manned programme since the late lunar landings.""
(...)
"In December 1968, Anders, along with crewmates Frank Borman and Jim Lovell, lifted off from Cape Canaveral in Florida atop a Saturn V, before completing 10 orbits around the Moon.

The crew of Apollo 8 spent 20 hours in orbit, before returning to Earth.

They splashed down in the Pacific on 27 December, landing just 5,000 yards (4,500 metres) from their target point. They were picked up by the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown.

It was the furthest humans had ever been from their home planet at that point - and a vital stepping stone on the road to Apollo 11's historic moon landing just seven months later."

Space: NASA Insight en Marte

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/nov/27/nasa-mars-insight-lander-sends-back-first-picture-from-red-planet

Citando:
"Taken with a clear dust cover still in place on the camera lens, the picture was beamed up from the Martian surface to Nasa’s orbiting Odyssey spacecraft, and from there sent the 91m miles (146m kilometres) to Earth."

Nuvem estranha em Marte

http://m.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2018/10/Elongated_cloud_on_Mars

Citando:
"Since 13 September 2018, the Visual Monitoring Camera (VMC) on board ESA’s Mars Express has been observing the evolution of a curious cloud formation that appears regularly in the vicinity of the 20 km-high Arsia Mons volcano, close to the planet’s equator. The cloud can be seen in this VMC image taken 10 October as the white, elongated feature extending 1500 km westward of the volcano.

A view of the region with labels is provided here.  "

Cianobactérias e Marte?

https://www.space.com/42001-weird-underground-microbes-aid-mars-life-search.html

Citando:
"That big switch from photosynthesis to chemical subsistence is intriguing, because while Mars today isn't the sort of place life as we know it could thrive, it was many, many years ago. So, if cyanobacteria on Earth snuck below the surface and found a new way to make a living, does that increase the odds something similar happened with hypothetical cyanobacteria-like organisms on Mars?"

Imagem de como o foguete de ida a Marte pode parecer

... não oficial:
http://www.thisisinsider.com/spacex-mars-spaceship-big-falcon-rocket-diagram-2018-9

Insight tira selfie

... a meio caminho de Marte:
http://www.space.com/41547-mars-insight-lander-selfie-halfway-mark.html
Citando:
""If you are an engineer on InSight, that first glimpse of the heat shield blanket, harness tie-downs and cover bolts is a very reassuring sight as it tells us our Instrument Context Camera is operating perfectly," InSight project manager Tom Hoffman said in the NASA statement. "The next picture we plan to take with this camera will be of the surface of Mars."

That picture will be taken on Nov. 26, a few minutes after InSight lands at Elysium Planitia, a flat plane near the planet's equator. Once settled, it will deploy its instruments and begin investigating the planet's interior structure and geology."

Água em Marte...

E muita:
https://www.publico.pt/2018/07/25/ciencia/noticia/agua-em-estado-liquido-encontrada-em-marte-1839119

Citando:
"Depois de uma dúzia de anos de investigação com recurso a um radar, um grupo de cientistas italianos relatou a existência de fortes indícios da presença de água líquida e salgada aprisionada debaixo de uma camada de gelo, com quilómetro e meio, na calota do pólo Sul de Marte. O estudo foi publicado esta quarta-feira na revista Science e apresenta os resultados da missão Mars Express, da Agência Espacial Europeia. As investigações feitas graças aos dados do radar MARSIS (Radar Avançado de Marte para Ressonância da Subsuperfície e da Ionosfera), obtidos entre Maio de 2012 e Dezembro de 2015, vieram confirmar o que há muito se suspeitava: há, de facto, água em quantidades relevantes no estado líquido no planeta vermelho."

Onda azul no planeta vermelho?

https://www.dn.pt/sociedade/interior/ha-uma-duna-azul-em-marte-9516247.html

Citando:
"No site do Mars Renaissance Orbiter, um orbiter da NASA, a câmara HiRISE que este usa é descrita como "a câmara fotográfica mais poderosa alguma vez enviada para outro planeta". Foi ela que captou a imagem de uma duna azul em Marte, o quarto planeta a contar e conhecido pela cor vermelha das suas rochas e areais

Na verdade, como explicou à CNN Alfred McEwen, diretor do Planetary Image Research Laboratory na Universidade do Arizona, a duna em questão é na verdade cinzenta, mas aparece na imagem de um azul forte. Foi esta a conclusão a que chegaram os cientistas depois de um apurado trabalho de edição das imagens captadas pelo Mars Renaissance Orbiter."

Matéria orgânica em Marte...

Anúncio da NASA a 7 de Junho?
Em quantidades maiores que à superfície (e variação de metano ao longo do tempo):
https://super.abril.com.br/ciencia/robo-curiosity-encontra-materia-organica-e-metano-misterioso-em-marte-e-dai/

Vida en Marte? (Atacama)

https://newatlas.com/baterial-bloom-atacama-mars/53578/

Citando:
"If the prospects of life on Mars were a pendulum, it's just swung back toward "favorable." An international team of researchers led by Washington State University planetary scientist Dirk Schulze-Makuch has found that the most Mars-like, apparently lifeless spot on the face of the Earth isn't so lifeless after all. Areas of the hyperarid Atacama Desert once thought lacking even microbes is showing blooms of specialized bacteria after rainfall, providing hope that similar dormant colonies may exist on the Red Planet.

The Atacama Desert is about as close to Mars as you can get on Earth. The Chilean desert has areas that are so inhospitable to life that not even bacteria can survive under normal circumstances. The nitrates falling from the sky that bacteria would normally gobble up remain uneaten and rainfall is measured in millimeters per decade. Though the 10 million-year-old desert is surprisingly cool with a Mediterranean climate, there isn't enough water to sustain life. Worse, the cooler temperatures means there's less energy available for growth and reproduction."

Simulador de solo marciano e minhocas?

https://www.sciencealert.com/earthworms-can-reproduce-in-fertilised-mars-soil-simulant

Citando:
"We need to know this because once we send humans to Mars, as NASA plans to do in the 2030s, it may be the first step towards a colony - and a colony is unsustainable without a food supply they can grow themselves.

As Wamelink and his team demonstrated in 2016, vegetables can indeed be grown in Martian soil.

Not as well as in Earth soil, but that's why the team is now trying new things - including adding pig manure and earthworms, which digest decaying plant matter and convert it into nutrients, and aerate the soil through which they tunnel.

Mars has limited weathering compared to Earth, though, which means the soil grains may have sharp edges that could harm the earthworms' digestive tracts."

Motivos da queda de sonda da ESA conhecidos

Uns dias depois, sabes-se que houve um sistema que calculou a altitude como negativa, o que fez pensar que já se tinha aterrado (desligando os sistemas de abrandamento):
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/european-space-agency-mars-lander-esa-schiaparelli-why-explained-red-planet-a7437336.html

Beagle 2 pode ter operado algum tempo (em vez de se ter despenhado) l ESA rover

A missão da ESA Beagle 2 pode não se ter despenhado em Marte e ter tido falha nas comunicações com a terra:
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-37940445

Propulsão inovadora pode levar missões a Marte em 10 semanas? - NASA

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3912828/Impossible-fuel-free-engine-humans-Mars-10-weeks-DOES-work-claim-leaked-Nasa-papers.html

Schiaparelli separou-se do TGO

A parte da missão Exomars que testará a aterragem em Marte separou-se do TGO (que se desviou um pouco para evitar a entrada em Marte:
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-37673617

Exomars chega a Marte dia 19

http://www.businessinsider.com/mars-rover-russia-europe-2016-10

Xénon e Krypton detectados por Curiosity (Marte)

Novo artigo científico publicado refere que o Xenon e Krypton detectados em Marte são algo diferentes do esperado. Detalhes da instrumentação (sensores, etc.) usados:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X16304514
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/09/30/curiosity_sniffs_mars_odd_atmosphere_wafting_out_of_its_soil/

Padrões "Morse" em Marte

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3681650/Is-morse-code-Mars-Nasa-image-reveals-strange-patterns-dots-dashes-created-dunes.html

Lagos em Marte?

Mais notícias de Marte (e um histórico dos anúncios da NASA interessante):
http://www.express.co.uk/news/weird/679155/HISTORIC-DISCOVERY-Standing-lakes-of-water-surrounded-by-trees-on-surface-of-Mars