The stars have always called to us, but right now, few calls are louder than the roar of SpaceX rockets piercing the sky. As Elon Musk and his team push humanity toward Mars, there’s a sense of awe and excitement—yet also a whisper of discomfort. Can we afford to chase distant worlds while our own ...
Imagine a world where Earth’s tiniest inhabitants could hold the key to life on another planet. As we celebrate the International Day of Human Space Flight, the possibility of Earth’s microbes surviving on Mars isn’t just a science fiction fantasy—it’s a tantalizing reality that scientists are actively exploring. Could these microscopic organisms pave the way ...
Picture this: humanity’s first child born on Mars takes their first breath of recycled air inside a pressurized habitat, while outside, red dust storms rage across alien terrain. But as this Martian-born human grows up, questions emerge that Earth-bound societies have never faced. What does it mean to be male or female when gravity is ...
Imagine holding in your hands a piece of another world. Not just any piece — but rocks that might contain the first evidence of life beyond Earth. After decades of sending robots to Mars to explore and study from afar, we’re now on the brink of something extraordinary: bringing actual Martian samples back to our ...
The night sky of June is expected to show a pair of amazing conjunctions one with the elusive Mercury and the other with a remarkably near encounter between the Moon and Mars. These events serve as a reminder of the clockwork accuracy of our solar system and an opportunity to see planetary motions that even ...
They say Mars is a world of ghosts—rusty, silent, and still, yet hiding secrets that could shake our understanding of the cosmos. For generations, we’ve pointed our telescopes, sent our robots, and dreamed about walking on that ochre soil. But why do we keep returning, again and again, to this cold desert planet? There’s something ...
It’s hard not to feel a shiver of excitement when thinking about lightning crackling through a volcanic ash cloud—nature’s fireworks, wild and unpredictable. But what if these electrifying displays on Earth hold secrets to the mysteries of weather on Mars? Scientists are now turning their attention to volcanic lightning, hoping it will unlock answers about ...
Imagine standing on the rusty surface of Mars, gazing across a landscape carved by winding channels and mysterious valleys. It’s hard not to feel a jolt of wonder: What worlds of water once flowed here, and what secrets do these ancient riverbeds still hold? For decades, scientists have been captivated (and sometimes haunted) by the ...
Imagine this: We launch a shiny rocket into the cold black of space, a marvel of human engineering, carrying not only our dreams of discovery but also stowaways too tiny to see. As the spacecraft hurtles toward Mars, invisible hitchhikers—microbes from Earth—cling to its surfaces, tucked into every nook and cranny. When that probe lands ...
A pair of cosmic oddballs, tumbling through the rusty Martian sky, have captured the imagination of astronomers and dreamers alike. Phobos and Deimos, Mars’ tiny and mysterious moons, look nothing like our own Moon. Instead, they resemble dark, battered potatoes racing around the Red Planet, shrouded in secrets and speculation. Are these moons ancient Martian ...
Alana Theron, BSc in Biodiversity and Ecology
