Chocolate lovers there's reason to celebrate. This Friday, August 7, the Mars chocolate company will give away 250,000 free chocolate bars. But, you'll have to act fast.

A team of researchers from the CSIC-INTA Astrobiology Centre in Madrid has confirmed that the type of mineralogical composition on the surface of Mars influences the measuring of its temperature. The study is published this week in the Journal of Environmental Monitoring and will be used to interpret the data from the soil temperature sensor of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) vehicle, whose launch is envisaged for 2011.

Mars gets as far as 250 million miles away, but many parts of it closely resemble places on Earth, including its landscape, history of water, soil and even its weather, says a Texas A&M University researcher in the current issue of "Science" magazine.

With the whoosh of compressed gas and the whir of unspooling wire, a team of Boulder scientists and engineers tested a new instrument prototype that might be used to detect groundwater deep inside Mars.

To date we have not found evidence of life anywhere but Earth. Of course most scientists think there is bound to be life all over the place "out there," but after all the Universe is quite big! In the search for extraterrestrial life Mars has long fascinated us. It appears that new evidence has surfaced about the possibility of life on the Red Planet.

The Russian Institute of Medical and Biological Problems (IMBP), in partnership with the European Space Agency (ESA), have selected six individuals to simulate space flight to the planet Mars. Scientists arranged to copy all conditions that can be imitated on Earth, such as finite food and water resources, an artificial atmosphere, and even time delays in communications to mimic the radio lag between Mars and Earth.

ESA is now gearing up to return to Russia to oversee preparations for the launch of its GOCE satellite – now envisaged for launch on 16 March 2009. This follows implementation of the corrective measures after the anomaly with the Rockot launcher that delayed the launch of GOCE by Eurockot Launch Services last October.

A team of NASA and university scientists has achieved the first definitive detection of methane in the atmosphere of Mars. This discovery indicates the planet is either biologically or geologically active.

Rocks on Mars are on the move, rolling into the wind and forming organized patterns, according to new research.

Surface features common in the northern and southern midlatitudes of Mars and known as lobate debris aprons and lineated valley fill are believed to have formed either as debris flows mobilized by pore ice or as debris-covered glaciers.

Data and images from Mars Express suggest that several Light Toned Deposits, some of the least understood features on Mars, were formed when large amounts of groundwater burst on to the surface.

Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and their colleagues have found evidence of ancient climate change on Mars caused by regular variation in the planet's tilt, or obliquity. On Earth, similar "astronomical forcing" of climate drives ice-age cycles.