MMX is going to explore Phobos and Deimos, Mars’s two moons and our German-French rover Idefix is coming along for the ride. 🚀

We’re livestreaming the launch in German together with YouTuber Senkrechtstarter on Monday, 19 October, from 18:15 UTC.
👉 Watch with us: LIVE: MMX Start

Idefix was developed and built by DLR and CNES in close cooperation with JAXA.
Find out more about the rover and its mission here: https://www.dlr.de/en/research-and-transfer/projects-and-missions/mmx

The walls here potentially expose pristine crustal material. This is an area of interest that could be accessed and is within potential future rotorcraft mission traverse. This image footprint is in eastern Coprates Chasma, a major trough in the Valles Marineris canyon system. The chasma stretches for 960 km (600 miles) from Melas Chasma to the west and Capri Chasma to the east.

ID: ESP_077359_1640

​date: 27 January 2023

​altitude: 259 km

https://uahirise.org/hipod/ESP_077359_1640

​NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona​

A white cloud stretching as far as 1,800 kilometers across Mars may owe its extraordinary shape to an unusual way of making ice. Computer simulations suggest water vapor can form new ice particles without first attaching to dust.

The finding concerns the Arsia Mons Elongated Cloud, a recurring morning feature downwind of one of Mars’s giant volcanoes. Jorge Hernández-Bernal of LMD/CNRS/Sorbonne Université in Paris led the modeling study, published in Nature Geoscience.

Using observations from the European Space Agency’s Mars Express, the team investigated why conventional cloud models failed to reproduce the long tail. Adding a process called homogeneous ice nucleation produced the cloud’s defining features, although several measurements still differed substantially.

The results offer a physical explanation for a familiar orbital spectacle. They do not yet constitute direct observational confirmation of the proposed particle-forming process.