The Aram Chaos region of Mars, as seen by the HiRISE camera on board NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (NASA) There’s a military operation on Mars! How do we know this? Psychics — or “military grade remote viewers” as they like to be called — “saw” it, and...

In its haste to become the first newspaper to print the “NASA: Evidence of Life on Mars” headline, the UK’s Sun website caused a stir last week. Not only was this headline incorrect, it was a wee bit irresponsible. For starters, no evidence for life has been found on the Red Planet....

Sorry Spirit, you're not coming home (see the full xkcd comic strip). As far as space missions go, you couldn’t find a better epic tale than that of Mars Expedition Rover Spirit. Designed to last 3 months, roved for six years; lost the use of a wheel, turned it into a nifty trench-digging tool;...

NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Spirit is suffering from amnesia, again. This is hardly surprising if we consider that the lifespan of Spirit should have been 3 months, the fact that it has lasted 69 months (so far) is nothing short of miraculous. In rover-mission-lifetime years, doesn’t...

The 6 meter-wide boulder as imaged by HiRISE (to supersize the pic, click on it - 9MB) It may only be a large rock, but images like this drive home the significance of the HiRISE instrument on board NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter; it enables us to see recent geological activity on a planet...

Subliming ice from the crater edge (NASA/JPL/University of Arizona) This image looks like the frosted top of an over-baked muffin, but it’s actually the side of a crater on Mars covered with ice. Taken by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment...

On its epic journey to Endeavour Crater, Mars Expedition Rover (MER) Opportunity passed a suspect looking boulder on July 18th. Dubbed “Block Island” by MER controllers, this dark rock looks very different from its surroundings, so Opportunity has been ordered to go off its planned route...

What are they? I’ve seen some odd photos from the Martian surface, but when I first saw this image, the pinks, blues and yellow smudges looked… alien. The surprise probably comes from the fact that we are so used to the rusty red pictures to come from the various rovers, landers and satellites,...

The two suspect shapes spotted by Mars conspiracy theorists. Exhibit 1: The Egyptian statue. Exhibit 2: ?? During my search for material for last week’s Wide Angle: Mars Roving on Discovery, I was looking for images snapped by the Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) Spirit and Opportunity. During my...

After dragon slayer and space shuttle pilot, yes, I think driving rovers over the Martian terrain is high up there on the list of best jobs ever… Source: Best Jobs Ever (thanks Ryan for the tip!)