An MIT-led team of planetary scientists has found that the southern pole of Mars contains the largest deposit of frozen water in the inner solar system, outside of Earth.

Key components of a new approach to discover life on Mars were successfully launched into space Friday as part of a twelve-day, low-Earth orbit experiment to assess their survivability in the space radiation environment—a prelude future journeys to Mars.

The mighty Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity continue to persevere in brutal conditions, as revealed in images of the sun they are sending home. The images show how opaque the Martian atmosphere has been in the face of a raging, two-month dust storm.

Mars rover scientists have launched a new long-term study on the Martian atmosphere with the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer, an instrument that was originally developed at the University of Chicago.

NASA clean rooms, where scientists and engineers assemble spacecraft, have joined hot springs, ice caves, and deep mines as unlikely places where scientists have discovered ultra-hardy organisms collectively known as ‘extremophiles’. Some species of bacteria uncovered in a recent NASA study have never been detected anywhere else.

Earth’s surface is a very active place; its plates are forever jiggling around, rearranging themselves into new configurations. Continents collide and mountains arise, oceans slide beneath continents and volcanoes spew. As far as we know Earth’s restless surface is unique to the planets in our solar system. So what is it that keeps Earth’s plates oiled and on the move?

High-resolution images of Martian volcanoes have revealed areas that show signs of recent lava flow.

Mars may also hold clues to climate change on earth, says Tufts' Sam Kounaves, co-investigator on Phoenix Mars Mission

IBM today announced that Power Architecture will make a return to outer space as NASA plans to launch the Phoenix Mars Lander, its most sophisticated probe to date. The lander will head to the polar north of Mars where it will dig into the frozen surface in search of the building blocks of life.

The High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board ESA’s Mars Express obtained images of the Tyrrhena Terra region on Mars.

Martian winds probably won't cause serious problems for NASA's upcoming Phoenix Mars Lander mission but could complicate efforts to collect soil and ice at the landing site, according to University of Michigan atmospheric scientist Nilton Renno.

In the 40 years that humans have been traveling into space, the suits they wear have changed very little. The bulky, gas-pressurized outfits give astronauts a bubble of protection, but their significant mass and the pressure itself severely limit mobility.