We have heard that peak climate change might be in sight. Does Mars have more clues about our future? Travelling from Mars’s equator toward its northern latitudes, planetary scientists reach a region called Coloe Fossae — a landscape carved by deep valleys, collapsed blocks of terrain, scattered craters, and remarkably, the fingerprints of a long-vanished ice age. New high-resolution images from ESA’s Mars Express mission offer the clearest evidence yet that the Red Planet once cycled through dramatic shifts in climate, much like Earth.

Earth has experienced several major ice ages over the past 2.5 billion years, the most recent peaking around 20,000 years ago when global temperatures fell to 7–10 °C. These events are driven by natural changes in Earth’s orbit and axial tilt — processes known as Milankovitch cycles. They bear no relation to modern, human-driven global warming, which scientists continue to warn about the climate crisis.

Mars, too, has undergone its own glacial rhythms. The new Mars Express imagery shows long, parallel lines cutting diagonally across Coloe Fossae — fractures created as alternating segments of ground collapsed over geological time. Scattered across the area are craters of every age and state: fresh and sharp-edged, or softened by erosion.

On the crater floors and valley bottoms lie the most intriguing features: swirling, textured patterns known as lineated valley fill and concentric crater fill. These formations arise when icy debris slowly flows, glacier-like, across the surface before becoming coated with rock and dust. On Earth, similar structures are found in glaciated mountain ranges and polar regions.

What makes Coloe Fossae especially fascinating is its latitude: 39°N — far from Mars’s polar caps. How did ice accumulate so far south?

The answer lies in Mars’s shifting axial tilt. Unlike Earth, whose tilt is stabilized by its large Moon, Mars wobbles chaotically over millions of years. During periods of extreme tilt, ice can migrate from the poles into mid-latitudes. Throughout multiple cold phases, glaciers spread outward and then retreated, leaving behind the flows and fills visible today. Scientists believe this region may have been covered in ice as recently as 500,000 years ago, when Mars’s most recent ice age ended.

The broader region, known as Protonilus Mensae, marks the dramatic boundary between Mars’s smooth northern lowlands and heavily cratered southern highlands. In some places, this global divide rises as a cliff two kilometers high; in others, like Coloe Fossae, it is a rugged transitional zone shaped by glaciers, impacts, and tectonic collapse. Similar features were observed in Acheron Fossae, highlighted in a previous Mars Express release.

These discoveries deepen our understanding of Mars as a dynamic planet with a shifting climate — and may even inform future studies of how planetary climates evolve, including our own,

The post What a martian ice age left behind tells us about our future appeared first on Green Prophet.

NASA’s Perseverance rover has spent three years exploring the floor of Jezero Crater, just north of the Martian equator, and the results are sparking new questions about life’s potential beyond Earth. A joint analysis by SETI Institute Senior Research Scientist Janice Bishop and University of Massachusetts Engineering Professor Mario Parente, published in Nature News & Views, reveals evidence of ancient chemical reactions that could have created energy-rich environments on early Mars.

Using hyperspectral images from the CRISM spectrometer aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Bishop and Parente produced a high-resolution mineral map of Jezero Crater showing deposits of clays and carbonates — minerals that form in the presence of water. “Coordinating mineral detections from orbit at Mars with in situ detections by the Perseverance rover gives us a detailed look at ancient chemical reactions for a few small areas and a broader view across kilometers of the surface,” said Bishop.

Clues in the Minerals

On its traverse from the landing site toward the crater’s western delta, Perseverance confirmed the presence of smectite clays and carbonates first spotted from orbit. More surprisingly, at sites named Bright Angel and Masonic Temple, it discovered tiny green-toned nodules of iron phosphate and iron sulfide embedded in clay-rich mudstone. On Earth, phosphates are essential to life, and such minerals can form through interactions between water, minerals, and organic matter.

“My group observed redox reactions in lab experiments where ferrihydrite containing oxidized iron was heated with organic compounds, including amino acids, to produce the mineral magnetite containing reduced iron,” Bishop explained. These “redox reactions” — transfers of electrons between minerals — can create energy that, on Earth, some microorganisms exploit for survival.

Raman data from Perseverance’s SHERLOC instrument suggest that the reduced minerals in Jezero’s mudstones appear more abundant in areas with higher concentrations of organic compounds. While not proof of life, this link hints at chemical pathways that could have supported microbial metabolism billions of years ago.

Signs of Change Over Time

The phosphate mineral vivianite, identified in the greenish nodules, was also found at a site called Onahu — but there it appears oxidized, or “rusted,” indicating environmental shifts in Mars’ history. Similar alternations in iron chemistry have been tied to changing habitability conditions on Earth.

Perseverance’s findings parallel discoveries in extreme environments here, such as Antarctic subglacial lakes, where microbes alter minerals in oxygen-poor water. “While there is no evidence for microbes on Mars today, if life once existed there, similar processes could have reduced sulfate minerals to sulfides in an ancient lake at Jezero crater,” Bishop said.

Parente’s work on CRISM data correction has removed distortions from Martian atmospheric effects and instrument quirks, allowing detection of subtle mineral “fingerprints” once lost in the noise. Using AI, his team created the most accurate mineral maps of Mars to date, pinpointing small outcrops and revealing mineral diversity that earlier surveys missed.

“By extracting the atmosphere’s imprint directly from the image itself, our technique yields cleaner surface spectra,” said Parente. “With CRISM data now clarified, subtle mineral features can be detected with greater confidence.”

Life, or Just Chemistry?

On Earth, similar mineral–organic interactions can be biological or abiotic. In Jezero Crater, the long geological timescales suggest the reduced vivianite and sulfides may have formed without biology — but organic compounds could still have driven the chemistry.

“Sulfur isotope analyses were used on Antarctic sediments to determine a biologic origin of the tiny sulfide crystals in anoxic water,” Bishop noted. Comparable tests on Mars samples, once returned to Earth, could help answer whether ancient Martian chemistry was purely geological — or something more.

The presence of clays, carbonates, phosphates, and organics together paints a picture of an ancient Mars where water was abundant and redox chemistry was active — two key ingredients for habitability. Whether this points to past life or not, the chemistry uncovered offers new insight into how planets evolve and how life might arise elsewhere.

More on Space from Green Prophet:

• NASA heads to Jupiter’s moon Europa to look for life below its frozen ocean
• Why Is the Martian Night Sky So Bright? New NASA video explains the Red Planet’s glow
• Mars found a way to store carbon. Can we?
• SpaceX and SETI partner to protect alien-hunting telescopes
• Ride on Japan’s space elevator
• Space-travel sunscreen found in new fungus experiment
• Can plants grow on the Moon?
• NASA’s rover finds opals on Mars
• Austrian Space Forum sets its next Mars mission to Morocco
• Microlightning in water might have sparked life
• Scientists design ‘Dune’-inspired spacesuit to recycle urine

The post Perseverance Rover Uncovers Ancient Martian Chemistry — And Raises the Question: Could This Hint at Past Life? appeared first on Green Prophet.

Moving to Mars? He’s a new fungus-based sunscreen to protect you from gamma radiation

Planning on traveling aboard SpaceX on a trip to Mars? An American lab just found a new potential sunscreen that creates protective melanin, a low-cost alternative to squid ink. It can be grown on space labs and used on Mars.

Here is the story!

Several years ago, Erin Carr’s doctoral adviser Steven Harris handed her bags of soil collected from the soil crust of a cold British Columbian desert. She went to work on it, suspending it in liquid, plating it onto a growth medium and treating it with antibiotics and antifungals. Then, she replated the tiny black dots that emerged.

Those dots turned out to be a novel fungus — Exophiala viscosa, though Carr dubbed it Goopy — that may just be a resource for large-scale, cost-effective production of melanin, with applications in ultraviolet-protective products and advanced materials for aerospace and other industries.

Related: Mars found a way to store carbon, can we?

Melanin is a natural pigment that determines the color of human skin, hair and eyes. Humans produce it with specialized cells called melanocytes and its concentration directly impacts skin tone, with more melanin resulting in darker skin. Melanin also plays a crucial role in a number of human health concerns: It protects the skin from harmful UV radiation, helping prevent skin cancer and other cancers and reducing inflammation associated with diseases such as diabetes and fatty liver disease.

Acquiring large quantities of melanin is problematic. Its primary source is squid ink, which requires a squid’s death to obtain small amounts, at a cost of about $300 per gram, said Carr, a postdoctoral research associate at Rajib Saha’s Systems and Synthetic Biology Lab in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.

Related: she’s growing food on Mars 

Certain fungi in cold deserts also naturally produce melanin, incorporating it into cell walls and releasing it under certain conditions. That is where Goopy comes in, said Rajib Saha, Richard L. and Carol S. McNeel Associate Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and the principal investigator on a three-year, $1,032,070 grant from the National Science Foundation to study the fungi’s potential in melanin production.

The difference between E. viscosa’s production of melanin and other fungi’s is that it “not only produces melanin and not only stores melanin in the membrane, it transports it out,” Saha said.

It is an unusual behavior that could make E. viscosa useful in large-scale melanin production.

Other fungi produce and store melanin but do not excrete it.

One hypothesis is that E. viscosa is partnering with photosynthetic organisms also found in that cold desert crust environment, such as algae and cyanobacteria, and within that relationship, melanin is being exchanged for essential nutrients, Carr said.

Because melanin may be an essential biomolecule for the survival of E. viscosa, its production of the substance may function more as a primary metabolite rather than a secondary, non-essential metabolite, she added.

Saha said the research aims to investigate this symbiosis to uncover the triggers regulating melanin production.

Carr is growing the fungus in a triculture that includes algae and cyanobacteria. Saha and his grad students will run computer metabolic modeling to help optimize and manipulate melanin pathways in the fungus and identify transcription factors used to regulate melanin production.

“We want to figure out how to optimize and increase the melanin secreted out of the cell so that we can use that melanin to do a wide variety of beneficial things for humanity,” Carr said.

That could mean adding it to sunscreen or textiles for UV radiation protection. It could be useful for space travel since melanin has been known to protect against gamma radiation. Melanin also might be useful in bioremediation of so-called “forever chemicals” and toxic metals that linger in the environment.

The post Space travel sunscreen found in new fungus experiment appeared first on Green Prophet.

Update: it’s been debunked as a fake.

A newly released NASA video captured by the Perseverance rover has sparked awe and curiosity: the Martian night sky, far from being pitch black, glows with an eerie brightness. The footage, taken from Jezero Crater, shows a surprisingly luminous Martian landscape illuminated under what seems to be a perpetual twilight.

So what’s behind this otherworldly glow?

The key lies in Martian dust. Unlike Earth, Mars has a thin atmosphere—just about 1% the density of ours—but it’s filled with ultra-fine particles of iron-rich dust that stay suspended in the air. These particles scatter sunlight long after sunset, creating a lingering glow in the sky. It’s similar to Earth’s twilight effect, but stretched much longer and redder due to the planet’s fine particulate matter and lack of moisture.

Related: Mars can teach Earth how to store carbon

Another factor is sunlight scattering at high altitudes. Even though the Sun sets on Mars just as it does on Earth, light continues to scatter off the high-altitude dust, keeping the sky bright for hours. This is why astronauts may one day be able to navigate or work during the “night” without artificial lighting—at least in the early evening.

Interestingly, the brightness also helps with scientific observations. The enhanced visibility aids in tracking passing meteors, dust devils, and even detecting faint clouds in the Martian atmosphere.

So while Mars might seem like a lifeless desert, its night sky proves it’s still very much a planet in motion—with light, dust, and mystery dancing above its rusty sands.

Elon Musk is preparing SpaceX to head to Mars. Would you like to see nigh skies like this?

The post Why Is the Martian Night Sky So Bright? New NASA Video Sheds Light on the Red Planet’s Glow appeared first on Green Prophet.

Mars, the dusty red planet that once held our wildest dreams of alien life, is revealing its past—and perhaps a glimpse of Earth’s future. Today it’s a frozen desert, with no breathable atmosphere and no surface water in sight. But new findings from NASA’s Curiosity Rover suggest Mars was once warm, wet, and much more Earth-like—possibly with rivers, rainfall, and lakes.

The key? A humble mineral called siderite, a type of iron carbonate that’s helping scientists piece together how Mars may have once locked away its carbon—and lost its atmosphere in the process.

Related: This Dune suit could keep us alive on Mars

In a recent SETI Live conversation, Dr. Ben Tutolo, a geochemist at the University of Calgary and a science team member on the Curiosity mission, shared the breakthrough. While analyzing rocks inside Gale Crater, Curiosity detected up to 10.5% siderite in some layers of Mount Sharp—far more than expected.

This wasn’t just a geochemical oddity. It was evidence that Mars once had abundant CO₂, likely released by volcanoes, which dissolved in ancient waters and was then mineralized into rock. That’s the same basic carbon capture strategy we’re exploring here on Earth today to combat climate change—except Mars figured it out a few billion years earlier.

Carbon Capture on a Planetary Scale—Then Collapse

On Earth, carbon gets locked up in limestone—made of calcium carbonate. On iron-rich Mars, siderite takes that role. Its presence, alongside evaporite minerals like magnesium sulfate, suggests a long phase of evaporation, meaning Mars had standing water. For that to happen, the atmosphere had to be thick—at least 1,000 times denser than it is today, rich in CO₂.

Related: rogue geo-engineers chased by the EPA for injecting sulphur into the atmosphere

But something happened: the atmosphere thinned, water disappeared, and the climate collapsed. Where did the CO₂ go? Some was lost to space, but this discovery shows that much of it was mineralized into the Martian crust.

The lesson is sobering. On Earth, we’re now injecting carbon into the atmosphere faster than the planet can absorb it. Mars shows us what can happen when a planet’s carbon cycle gets thrown off balance—even slightly—over geological timescales. A world once capable of supporting liquid water became uninhabitable. This is more than a Martian mystery; it’s a cautionary tale. If Mars could lose its habitability after capturing its carbon, what could happen to Earth if we fail to?

Related: dealing with gravity on Mars

The next steps will involve returning samples from these siderite-rich layers to Earth, possibly offering clues not just to climate, but to life. If Mars held onto water for long enough, it might have also given life a fighting chance. And if a “dead” planet like Mars once supported a warm, wet climate, then our definition of what makes a world habitable—whether in our solar system or beyond—may need a radical rethink. Maybe Elon Musk will get there soon with SpaceX and report back to earth before it’s too late. The United Arab Emirates plans on joining Musk on Mars.

The post Mars found a way to store carbon. Can we? appeared first on Green Prophet.

Today, no one doubts the existence of black holes, but until 2019, they remained pure hypothetical speculation – even though the term itself, and logically, the accompanying hypothesis, dates back to the mid-20th century. Well, now that the Event Horizon Telescope has officially confirmed the factual existence of such holes, astronomers have been discovering more and more of them, which raises a pretty relevant question – what is the closest black hole to Earth and should we be anxious about the neighbour?

Not to bury such a dramatic lead, let’s just say that we’re safe for now – actually, we should remain safe for a very long time. And now, in the comfort of our newly confirmed safety, let’s learn a few curious facts about the closest black hole to Earth 2024 astronomical facts we know so far. 

Closest Black Hole to Earth: Gaia BH1

In 2022, the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission, originally set to create a three-dimensional map of our galaxy, discovered a black hole, which, logically enough, was dubbed Gaia. The object is situated in the constellation Ophiuchus and is part of a binary stellar system – that is, a system that consists of two gravitationally tied objects. One of those objects is a star very similar to our Sun, and it’s thanks to the gravitational interconnections that ESA scientists could determine there is a black hole. The thing is, these holes are still tricky to spot with our optics, so the first thing that caught the astronomers’ attention was the slightly unorthodox star behaviour, indicating a strong pull from another object, which turned out to be Gaia.

Another peculiarity that initially made Gaia tricky to spot is its dormant state. Unlike most of its rapidly-feeding and growing ‘sisters,’ Gaia is relatively quiet. But just how quiet and, more importantly, how close? Currently, the closest black hole to Earth distance is estimated at 1,560 light-years from our planet.

On a cosmic scale, that is not too far but consider for a second that our entire solar system stretches only a few light DAYS across. In contrast, the nearest star system, Alpha Centauri, is about 4.37 light-years away — a fraction compared to 1,560 – but still incredibly far. Right, the fastest travelling object humanity has made, the Parker Solar Probe, is heading towards the Sun at 635,266 km/h. But to reach Gaia, it would need 2,650,358 terrestrial years!

Now that you know what’s the closest black hole near Earth? And more importantly, that it’s not that close, we can exhale once again and learn a few more facts about these mysterious matter-devouring objects.

Biggest Black Hole Ever Discovered

While Gaia BH1 is the closest black hole to Earth, it is by no means the largest – not even close!  These holes vary dramatically in mass, from a few times the mass of our Sun to millions or even billions of solar masses. In this regard, Gaia is about ten masses of our Sun. And the biggest title belongs to a quasar TON 618, weighing a staggering 66 billion solar masses! How far is this monster, then? Fortunately, way too far – 18.2 billion light-years!

What Happens if a Black Hole is Near Earth?

Black holes have a scary reputation for devouring everything in their path, but even this process, quick as it may be on a cosmic scale, is incredibly long from our human perspective. Assuming a hole, the mass of our Sun replaced our star at the centre of the solar system (just hypothetically, of course), the solar system planets would keep orbiting as if nothing had changed. We would lose our source of light and energy and freeze to death, but that’s an entirely different hypothesis.

Back to the subject of black holes, one of these would need to venture into the inner solar system to cause immediate trouble for Earth. The thing is, relative to their huge mass, the holes are very small. So, to exert any kind of immediate damage, a planet would really need to be in the hole’s vicinity. And our home system is relatively well-studied, so we can safely state no black holes are lurking around the corner.

Takeaway: Should We Worry about Black Holes?

As you have probably guessed already, the answer to that is a definite no. Even the closest black hole to Earth is incredibly far away on the scale of our solar system. Besides, the gravitational pull of the cosmic monster diminishes with distance – that, as we already explained, needs to be a close one to cause immediate damage. Of course, our telescopes keep developing, and we may discover new cosmic holes soon enough – some of them might even rob Gaia of its closest title. Still, there is every reason to believe our home system and our planet is safe. 

Author: Emma Thorpe

The post What Is the Closest Black Hole to Earth & Should We Fear the Neighbour? appeared first on Green Prophet.

America’s space agency NASA has identified nine potential landing regions for its upcoming Artemis III mission, the first crewed Moon landing since 1972.

The regions are all near the lunar South Pole, an area of the Moon that has never been explored. Selection criteria included terrain suitability, lighting conditions and communication capabilities with Earth.

“The Moon’s South Pole is a completely different environment than where we landed during the Apollo missions,” says Sarah Noble, Artemis lunar science lead. “It offers access to some of the Moon’s oldest terrain, as well as cold, shadowed regions that may contain water and other compounds.”

Related: read all about space junk

These regions contain diverse geological characteristics and offer flexibility for mission availability. The lunar South Pole has never been explored by a crewed mission and contains permanently shadowed areas that can preserve resources, including water.

The refined candidate Artemis III lunar landing regions are, in no priority order:

• Peak near Cabeus B
• Haworth
• Malapert Massif
• Mons Mouton Plateau
• Mons Mouton
• Nobile Rim 1
• Nobile Rim 2
• de Gerlache Rim 2
• Slater Plain

To select these landing regions, a multidisciplinary team of scientists and engineers analyzed the lunar South Pole region using data from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and a vast body of lunar science research.

Factors in the selection process included science potential, launch window availability, terrain suitability, communication capabilities with Earth, and lighting conditions. Additionally, the team assessed the combined trajectory capabilities of NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket, the Orion spacecraft, and Starship HLS (Human Landing System) to ensure safe and accessible landing sites.

Read more: on light pollution

“Artemis III will be the first time that astronauts will land in the south polar region of the Moon. They will be flying on a new lander into a terrain that is unique from our past Apollo experience,” said Jacob Bleacher, NASA’s chief exploration scientist. “Finding the right locations for this historic moment begins with identifying safe places for this first landing, and then trying to match that with opportunities for science from this new place on the Moon.”

NASA’s site assessment team will engage the lunar science community through conferences and workshops to gather data, build geologic maps, and assess the regional geology of eventual landing sites. The team also will continue surveying the entire lunar South Pole region for science value and mission availability for future Artemis missions. This will include planning for expanded science opportunities during Artemis IV, and suitability for the LTV (Lunar Terrain Vehicle) as part of Artemis V.

Related: NASA heads to Jupiter moon to look for water

Under NASA’s Artemis campaign, the agency will establish the foundation for long-term scientific exploration at the Moon, land the first woman, first person of color, and its first international partner astronaut on the lunar surface, and prepare for human expeditions to Mars for the benefit of all.

More on the mission here

The post Landing spots for Moon to Mars mission selected appeared first on Green Prophet.

If we look at Frank Herbert’s Dune novels is mostly desert, with extreme heat and an almost total absence of water and inhabitants rely on stillsuits, which recycle water from sweat and urine to sustain them in the dry environment. Drinking purified moisture from the body is not just a fantasy invention, however – it could soon be reality for astronauts, thanks to a prototype urine collection and filtration system inspired by stillsuits.

Scientists at Weill Cornell Medicine and Cornell University have developed a new spacesuit, inspired by Frank Herbert’s Dune, that recycles urine via a filtration backpack to extend spacewalks and improve hygiene. Unlike the traditional NASA suits, which have led to issues like UTIs, the new design features a vacuum-based external catheter and forward-reverse osmosis, though NASA has yet to adopt the technology.

Outside the safety of a space station, spacewalkers rely on their suits for oxygen and protection from the environment. Over the five to eight hours of a typical mission, they may also need to relieve themselves, which is often uncomfortable and unhygienic. It is also wasteful, as the water from urine is not recycled in current suits, unlike wastewater on the International Space Station.

No more astronaut diapers?

Astronauts have long complained about a lack of comfort and hygiene when using the maximum absorbency garment (Mag diaper), NASA’s ‘waste management system’ that essentially works like a multi-layered adult nappy made of superabsorbent polymer.

“The Mag has reportedly leaked and caused health issues such as urinary tract infections and gastrointestinal distress. Additionally, astronauts currently have only one litre of water available in their in-suit drink bags. This is insufficient for the planned longer-lasting lunar spacewalks, which can last 10 hours, and even up to 24 hours in an emergency,” said Sofia Etlin, research staff member at Weill Cornell Medicine and Cornell University, part of the study detailing the new suit.

The new design includes a vacuum-based external catheter leading to a combined forward-reverse osmosis unit to provide a continuous supply of potable water, with multiple safety mechanisms to ensure astronaut wellbeing.

The urine collection device includes an undergarment made of multiple layers of flexible fabric. This connects to a collection cup of moulded silicone, with a different shape and size for women and men. The inner face of the collection cup is lined with polyester microfibre or a nylon-spandex blend, drawing urine away from the body.

An RFID tag linked to an absorbent hydrogel activates a vacuum pump when moisture is detected, sucking the urine into the filtration system. There, the urine is recycled with an efficiency of 87% through a two-step, integrated forward and reverse osmosis system. This uses a concentration gradient to remove water from the urine, as well as a pump to separate water from salt.

While the prototype looks bulky we could call on SpaceX designers to make the final look more appealing.

The purified water is then enriched in electrolytes and pumped into the in-suit drink bag, available for consumption. Collecting and purifying 500ml of urine should take only five minutes, the researchers claimed.

“Our system can be tested in simulated microgravity conditions, as microgravity is the primary space factor we must account for. These tests will ensure the system’s functionality and safety before it is deployed in actual space missions,” said Dr Christopher E Mason, the study’s lead author.

Related: Are Muslims allowed to travel to Mars?

The system, which integrates control pumps, sensors, and a liquid-crystal display screen, is powered by a 20.5V battery with a capacity of 40 amp-hours. Its total size is 38x23x23cm and it weighs 8kg, which its developers said should be “sufficiently compact and light to be carried on the back of a spacesuit”.

The prototype was developed with one eye on upcoming NASA Artemis missions.

A crew will orbit the Moon in 2025, followed a year later by a landing on its south pole.

Crewed missions to Mars are expected in the early 2030s – and the Emirates plans on being there along with Elon Musk.

The post Scientists design ‘Dune’-inspired spacesuit to recycle urine appeared first on Green Prophet.