LARGE DUST STORM SWALLOWS MARS
June/July, 2001: Beginning in mid-June, 2001 a region of increased dust abundance began to appear in the Hellas Basin. This activity persisted for over a week until June 26 when the storm began to intensify and expand. The storm has since expanded to become a planet-encircling dust storm and is the largest that has been seen during the Mars Global Surveyor mission. The thermal emission spectrometer (TES) instrument has monitored the dust storm and TES movies show its growth and persistence.

THE PASCAL MISSION SELECTED FOR STUDY
June 13, 2001: The Pascal Mars Climate Network Mission, proposed by our group, has been selected for study as a potential mission in NASA's Mars Scout Program . Pascal would establish a network of 24 globally-distributed miniature landers on Mars that would monitor the climate of Mars hourly for 10 Martian years (equivalent to 18.8 Earth years). Such a mission would allow us to characterize the long-term, global climate of another planet for the first time. By sending Pascal to Mars, we seek to determine what the similarities and differences between planetary atmospheres can tell us about the Earth's climate and the physical theory that governs any planet's atmosphere. Understanding Martian weather is also important for ensuring the success of future robotic missions to Mars and is essential for a future human mission.

18 MARTIAN METEORITES AND COUNTING
Meteorites found last year in Oman and Morocco have been identified as Martian. This now means that the total number of Martian meteorites is 18. One new meteorite, called Northwest Africa 817, was found in Morocco in December 2000. This new meteorite is rather unusual because it belongs to a small subgroup of the Martian meteorites called nakhlites, the last of which was found in 1958. There are now 4 nakhlites. The nakhlite rocks crystallized from a volcanic melt on Mars about 1.3 billion years ago.

MARS ODYSSEY LAUNCH
Mars Odyssey was launched on April 7 from Cape Canaveral. Odyssey is a spacecraft that will go in to orbit around Mars in October. The objectives are to map minerals and elements on the surface of Mars, study landforms, and evaluate the potential health risks of the Martian radiation environment for any future human explorers.

NEW EVIDENCE OF ANCIENT LIFE ON MARS
Prof Imre Friedmann, a visiting fellow here at NASA Ames Research Center, and a team of international researchers, have discovered chains of tiny magnetite crystals in the oldest Martian meteorite (ALH84001). Chains of such crystals on Earth are known only to be produced by "magnetotactic" bacteria. The minerals in the meteorite are estimated to be 3.9 billion years old. This suggests that life may have been abundant 3.9 billion years ago on Mars, according to the report published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Feb 27, 2001). Magneto-tactic bacteria use their magnetic sense to move along redox gradients away from oxygen. Thus, the discovery may also suggest that oxygen was being produced on Mars by photosynthetic bacteria. However, one should also note that there are very skeptical views of the biological interpretation of magnetite crystals.

LANDING SITE SELECTION FOR MARS EXPLORATION ROVERS, 2003
View the data and resources (including orbiter images, topography maps, and mineral maps) that scientists are using to select landing sites for the Mars Exploration Rovers, due for launch in 2003.

NORTHERN SUMMER ON MARS
Spring in the northern hemisphere of Mars began around June 1, 2000. Summer arrived around December 16, Earth time. Check out the latest pictures from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter.

ANCIENT SEDIMENTARY ROCKS ON MARS
December, 2000: Pictures of layered rocks taken by the Mars Orbiter Camera on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft, suggest that lakes and seas were once prevalent on Mars in the ancient past, before 3.5 billion years ago.

YET ANOTHER MARS METEORITE IS FOUND
May 25, 2000: The latest Martian meteorite (the 16th) was found in a Middle Eastern desert on Jan 24, 2000. Called Dhofar 019, the 1,056-gram (37-ounce) stone seems to be made of a martian basalt known as shergottite. It was picked up in the Dhofar region of the Sultanate of Oman which occupies the eastern corner of the Arabian Peninsula. Since 1998, there have been new finds of 4 Martian meteorites:as 4 pieces of a meteorite called Dar Al Gani found in the Sahara desert, 2 pieces of a meteorite found in someone's backyard in Los Angeles, 2 pieces of a meteorite found in Sayh al Uhaymir in Oman, and finally the Dhofar meteorite.

FAILED MARS MISSIONS UNDERFUNDED AT LEAST 30%
Mar 28, 2000: An independent inquiry commissioned by NASA has determined that the failures in 1999 of the Mars Climate Orbiter, Polar Lander and Microprobe missions were due to inadequate software and systems testing resulting from underfunding. The inquiry leader, Thomas Young, a retired aerospace executive, said that however hard the small mission staff worked they could not compensate for the unrealistic budget and schedule.

A NEW MARTIAN METEORITE HAS BEEN IDENTIFIED
Jan 31, 2000: Another Martian meteorite has been announced! It consists of two stones of 0.4526 and 0.2454 kg mass. The new meteorite is officially named "Los Angeles" (believe it or not) and was found somewhere in the Mojave Desert in California about 20 years ago. Since that time, these pieces of Mars have been sitting in boxes in the backyard of Bob Verish in LA until he decided to clean up the yard in October last year. The rocks were subsequently identifed as Martian by UCLA petrologists. Assuming the two Mars meteorites found in the Sahara Desert are paired, and the two new Los Angeles rocks are also paired, then the number of unique Mars meteorites is currently at 14.

POSSIBLE EVIDENCE OF ANCIENT OCEANS ON MARS
NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter has detected possible evidence of ancient oceans lying in the northern lowlands of Mars. Evidence comes from precise measurements of supposed shorelines.

MARS POLAR LANDER REACHES MARS
NASA's Mars Polar Lander landed in the south polar region on Dec 3, 1999. However, NASA has not achieved radio contact with the lander and little hope remains. There were also two piggyback, technology-demonstration Microprobes that failed.

ESA UPGRADES MARS EXPRESS
Nov 11, '99: The European Space Agency (ESA) announced that two of the instruments to be included on the Mars Express spacecraft will be upgraded, partially in light of the failure of NASA's Mars Climate Orbiter mission. Work also continues on the Beagle 2 lander.

MARS CLIMATE ORBITER LOST
Sept 23,'99: NASA's Mars Climate Orbiter arrived at Mars. The mission would have observed the seasonal climate and daily weather of Mars. However, mission control at JPL lost contact 25 minutes after the orbit insertion maneuver.

HUBBLE TELESCOPE VIEWS MASSIVE MARTIAN POLAR CYCLONE
May 19,'99: Images taken in Mars' northern mid-summer show a cyclone, roughly 1000 miles across, composed of water ice clouds.

EUROPEANS SET FOR MARS
May 13, '99: The European Space Agency (ESA) Ministerial Council agreed on new budgets for their future space science program, which enable the Agency to include Mars Express, the first European mission to Mars. See this News Story March 30 ,'99. ESA signed a contract with Matra Marconi Space (MMS) to build the Mars Express spacecraft. This is an orbiter to be launched in June 2003, arriving at Mars in December 2003. A lander, called Beagle 2, is to be carried on the Mars Express Mission. The lander is dedicated to studies concerning the possibility of life on Mars.

MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR BEGINS MAPPING
Mar 12, '99: Systematic mapping of the planet has begun! Check out the latest, including cool new images. Feb 4, 1999: The Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft has finished aerobraking through the atmosphere into a more circular orbit around Mars. The orbit is now about 2 hours in duration and inclined at 93 degrees (i.e. near-circumpolar).

ANOTHER PART OF THE 13th MARS METEORITE ANNOUNCED
Mar 11, '99: Another Mars meteorite has been discovered! The 2.15 kilogram meteorite was discovered in the Sahara desert near Dar al Gani in Libya last year; it may be part of the same fall as the 13th meteorite also found near Dar al Gani. See the News story.

HUBBLE IMAGES OF MARS
Feb 25,'99: Recent images provide clues about Martian water.

MARS MICROMISSIONS
Feb 2, 1999: NASA's current budget request includes two new program elements: Mars Network and Mars Micromissions. Mars Network will provide a series of communication orbiters to Mars, and Mars Micromissions is a program with the French space agency (CNES) to deliver small missions (50 kg payload) launched to Mars via piggyback on the Ariane 5 rocket. According to the request, one micromission "either in 2003 or 2005, will feature the Mars Airplane, a fly-over mission to provide reconnasissance for sample return sites or explore such geologically interesting and dramatic areas as Valles Marineris."

TEST OF MARS PROBE DESIGN

The Pascal mission, proposed by our group to measure the climate on Mars comprehensively for a Mars decade using a network of cheap, miniature weather stations on Mars recently had a flight test. A full-size entry probe (38 cm in diameter) like that which would be used to deploy stations on Mars was released in space at 292 km altitude above the Earth and fell back to White Sands Missile Range through the atmosphere. Data from on-board accelerometers and radar tracking are being recovered and analyzed to evaluate the probe performance. (PHOTO: taken in space from a camera on the deployment rocket. Inset: the probe in the workshop. Photos courtesy of Marc Murbach.).