Mars had an interesting few months. Since June, the entirety of the Red Planet has been enveloped in a gigantic global dust storm, thick enough to put the solar-powered Opportunity rover in sleep mode (which it has yet to wake up from) as well as affecting operations from orbiters studying the planet.

The dust storm is now subsiding and there are some new images that reveal the intriguing local effects that the storm has had. In photos collected by the European-Russian mission ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, it is possible to spot dark streaks across the Martian terrain. The team suggests that they might have been caused by dust devils, whirlwinds stirring up loose materials from the surface.

The team suspects dust devils are the best potential explanation because they think the cause of these streaks is most likely linked to the dust storm. The ExoMars pictures, taken on September 2 by the Colour and Stereo Surface Imaging System or CaSSIS aboard the orbiter, were compared with images of the same regions taken by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in March and there was little evidence of streaks then.

While the dust storm clearly slowed down some operations for ExoMars, it also offered an opportunity for some routine improvements of CaSSIS to be carried out.

“The dust-obscured observations are actually quite good for calibration,” CaSSiS Principal Investigator, Nicolas Thomas from the University of Bern, said in a statement. “The camera has a small amount of straylight [unintended light] and we have been using the dust storm images to find the source of the straylight and begin to derive algorithms to remove it.”

ExoMars is taking center stage at the European Planetary Science Congress in Berlin this week. The first scientific results from the orbiter will be announced at the congress. The mission is studying methane and other trace gasses that could indicate biological activities on the Red Planet.

“We are very excited to be discussing some of the first scientific results from the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter at EPSC this week, as well as the progress of the upcoming surface mission,” says Håkan Svedhem, ESA’s Trace Gas Orbiter project scientist.

“While our instrument teams are working hard analyzing the details of the atmospheric gas inventory and preparing these results for publication, we are certainly pleased to already be able to contribute to topical discussions on the dust storm and on issues that are essential for future crewed missions to Mars.”</s>Astronauts travelling to Mars would experience 60% of their recommended career exposure to radioactivity in a single return journey, a conference has been told.

Scientists in charge of the ESA-Roscosmos ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter – a combined European and Russian project that has been monitoring atmospheric gases around the red planet since 2016 – revealed to the European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC) in Berlin, Germany, radiation readings gathered by the orbiter during its six-month voyage from Earth to Mars, and its subsequent orbit.

By doubling the travel-specific readings to account for the return voyage, the scientists calculate that the overall exposure experienced by Mars astronauts will be sufficient to limit their journeys to just one.

The data was gathered by a specialised piece of equipment called the Liulin-MO dosimeter, attached to the orbiter. The findings are in general agreement with particle detectors on board other space probes.

“One of the basic factors in planning and designing a long-duration crewed mission to Mars is consideration of the radiation risk,” says Jordanka Semkova of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, and lead scientist of the Liulin-MO instrument.

“Radiation doses accumulated by astronauts in interplanetary space would be several hundred times larger than the doses accumulated by humans over the same time period on Earth, and several times larger than the doses of astronauts and cosmonauts working on the International Space Station.

“Our results show that the journey itself would provide very significant exposure for the astronauts to radiation.”

At the same conference – which winds up on Friday, September 21 – another team of scientists working on the orbiter project released new images of the surface of Mars, taken as a monster dust storm begins to subside.



The storm, which hit earlier this year, forced NASA’s Opportunity rover to go into protective shutdown. Despite being 400 kilometres above the ground, the ExoMars orbiter was also affected, and has been unable to image the planet for several months.

With the dust at last waning, its onboard cameras are once again functioning. To celebrate, the team released an image of the Ariadne Colles region, in the planet’s southern hemisphere, taken on September 2.

The picture shows what the researchers cautiously describe as “dust devils” – possibly whirlwinds stirring up loose material from the surface. An earlier image of the same area, taken by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, showed no evidence of similar disturbances, leading observers to suggest they are direct result of the storm.

“While our instrument teams are working hard analysing the details of the atmospheric gas inventory and preparing these results for publication, we are certainly pleased to already be able to contribute to topical discussions on the dust storm and on issues that are essential for future crewed missions to Mars,” says ESA project scientist Hakan Svedhem.</s>The orbiter's camera team are also presenting new images of Mars during the meeting. They will also highlight the challenges faced from the recent dust storm that engulfed the entire planet, preventing high-quality imaging of the surface.

The Trace Gas Orbiter began its science mission at Mars in April, and while its primary goals are to provide the most detailed inventory of martian atmospheric gases to date – including those that might be related to active geological or biological processes – its radiation monitor has been collecting data since launch in 2016.

The Liulin-MO dosimeter of the Fine Resolution Epithermal Neutron Detector (FREND) provided data on the radiation doses recorded during the orbiter's six-month interplanetary cruise to Mars, and since the spacecraft reached orbit around the planet.

On Earth, a strong magnetic field and thick atmosphere protects us from the unceasing bombardment of galactic cosmic rays, fragments of atoms from outside our Solar System that travel at close to the speed of light and are highly penetrating for biological material.

In space this has the potential to cause serious damage to humans, including radiation sickness, an increased lifetime risk for cancer, central nervous system effects, and degenerative diseases, which is why ESA is researching ways to best protect astronauts on long spaceflight missions.

The ExoMars measurements cover a period of declining solar activity, corresponding to a high radiation dose. Increased activity of the Sun can deflect the galactic cosmic rays, although very large solar flares and eruptions can themselves be dangerous to astronauts.

"One of the basic factors in planning and designing a long-duration crewed mission to Mars is consideration of the radiation risk," says Jordanka Semkova of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and lead scientist of the Liulin-MO instrument.

"Radiation doses accumulated by astronauts in interplanetary space would be several hundred times larger than the doses accumulated by humans over the same time period on Earth, and several times larger than the doses of astronauts and cosmonauts working on the International Space Station. Our results show that the journey itself would provide very significant exposure for the astronauts to radiation."

The results imply that on a six-month journey to the Red Planet, and assuming six-months back again, an astronaut could be exposed to at least 60% of the total radiation dose limit recommended for their entire career.

The ExoMars data, which is in good agreement with data from Mars Science Laboratory's cruise to Mars in 2011–2012 and with other particle detectors currently in space – taking into account the different solar conditions – will be used to verify radiation environment models and assessments of the radiation risk to the crewmembers of future exploration missions.

A similar sensor is under preparation for the ExoMars 2020 mission to monitor the radiation environment from the surface of Mars. Arriving in 2021, the next mission will comprise a rover and a stationary surface science platform. The Trace Gas Orbiter will act as a data relay for the surface assets.

Radiation is not the only hazard facing Mars missions. A global dust storm that engulfed the planet earlier this year resulted in severely reduced light levels at the surface, sending NASA's Opportunity rover into hibernation. The solar-powered rover has been silent for more than three months.

Orbiting 400 km above the surface, the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter's Colour and Stereo Surface Imaging System, CaSSIS, has also suffered. Because the surface of the planet was almost totally obscured by dust, the camera was switched off for much of the storm period.

"Normally we don't like to release images like this (right), but it does show how the dust storm prevents useful imaging of the surface," says the camera's Principal Investigator, Nicolas Thomas from the University of Bern. "We had images that were worse than this when we took an occasional look at the conditions, and it didn't make too much sense to try to look through 'soup'."

But the camera team discovered that even a dust cloud has a silver lining.

"The dust-obscured observations are actually quite good for calibration," says Nicolas. "The camera has a small amount of straylight and we have been using the dust storm images to find the source of the straylight and begin to derive algorithms to remove it."

Since 20 August, CaSSIS has started round-the-clock imaging again.

"We still have some images affected by the dust storm but it is quickly getting back to normal and we have already had a lot of good quality images coming down since the beginning of September," adds Nicolas.

One image acquired on 2 September (shown here at the top of the page), although not completely free from artefacts, shows striking dark streaks that might be linked to the storm itself. A possible interpretation is that these features were produced by 'dust devils' – whirlwinds – stirring up loose surface material. The region, Ariadne Colles in the southern hemisphere of Mars, was imaged by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter camera in March, before the storm, and there seemed to be little evidence of these streaks.

"We are very excited to be discussing some of the first scientific results from the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter at EPSC this week, as well as the progress of the upcoming surface mission," says Håkan Svedhem, ESA's Trace Gas Orbiter project scientist.

"While our instrument teams are working hard analysing the details of the atmospheric gas inventory and preparing these results for publication, we are certainly pleased to already be able to contribute to topical discussions on the dust storm and on issues that are essential for future crewed missions to Mars."</s>Dust devils on Mars are no joke, with some growing as tall as tornadoes on Earth. The whirlwinds often scour the Martian surface, leaving behind telltale signs of their presence.

A recent global dust storm on Mars, which is now receding, seems to have left a dust devil calling card in a new image from the European Space Agency's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter spacecraft released on Wednesday.

The processed view shows an alien-looking terrain described as "chaotic blocks." The surface looks like a giant clawed hand reached down and scratched it all over, revealing dark streaks against a lighter-colored background.

Dust devils are common on Mars. NASA's rovers have seen them from ground level. NASA's now-defunct Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft even caught a dust devil in the act of making a dark streak back in 1999.

Though ESA titled the image "dust devil tracks on Mars," the space agency is leaving the door open for other explanations for the distinctive marks, calling dust devils "one possible interpretation" for the dark streaks.

The features bear a strong resemblance to marks seen in a 2016 image from NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey mission. NASA says the scratch-like lines "are made by dust devil activity scouring the surface and removing the lighter toned dust to reveal the darker rocky surface below."</s>Researchers believe the dark streaks may be tracks left by huge dust devils. Photo: ESA/Roscosmos/CaSSIS

A special Mars camera developed at the University of Bern has sent back a dramatic image of the surface of the planet after a recent planet-wide dust storm.

The image was captured on September 2nd by the Colour and Stereo Surface Imaging System (CaSSIS) which is on board the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter 400 kilometres above the surface of Mars.

It shows dark streaks which researchers believe could be dust devil tracks left by a recent dust storm that swept across the entire planet. Earlier images of the region captured by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter before the dust storm do not contain these streaks.

Read also: Why scientists are building a 'Martian garden' in Switzerland

The storm reduced light levels on the planet so significantly that NASA’s solar-powered Opportunity rover was out of action for three months.

The CaSSIS was also offline for a long period although it has been fully operational again since August 20th, the European Space Agency (ESA) said in a statement.

The CaSSIS was designed by an international team guided by the University of Bern. It has been sending through extremely high-resolution images of Mars since earlier this year including the stunning composite image of the Korolev crater seen above, and that of the recent dust storm (below).

A dramatic image of the Mars dust storm captured in April.Photo: ESA/Roscosmos/CaSSIS

The ExoMarsTrace Gas Orbiter, a joint project of the ESA and Russian space agency Roscosmos aims to create the most detailed inventory yet of Martian atmospheric gases.

The CaSSIS is assisting by capturing images of surface features that could be related to trace gas sources.

Preliminary data obtained by the orbiter and CaSSIS suggest both high levels of radiation and dust storms would be major difficulties in any future crewed mission to Mars.</s>There are plenty of challenges to putting people on Mars, whether you look at the rocket, the astronaut or the planet itself.

New data from one of the many spacecraft at work around Mars confirm just how dangerous a round-trip human journey would be by measuring the amount of radiation an astronaut would experience.

Cosmic radiation is made up of incredibly tiny particles moving incredibly fast, nearly at the speed of light — the sort of phenomenon a human body isn't very well equipped to withstand. That radiation travels across all of space, but Earth's atmosphere buffers us from the worst of its impacts. That means the farther away from Earth's surface you go, the more cosmic radiation your body absorbs. [Space Radiation Threat to Astronauts Explained (Infographic)]

By the time you're traveling to and from Mars, that gets to be a very big problem. "Radiation doses accumulated by astronauts in interplanetary space would be several hundred times larger than the doses accumulated by humans over the same time period on Earth, and several times larger than the doses of astronauts and cosmonauts working on the International Space Station," Jordanka Semkova, a physicist at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and lead scientist on the new research, said in a statement. "Our results show that the journey itself would provide very significant exposure for the astronauts to radiation."

Those results are based on data from the European Space Agency's Trace Gas Orbiter, a spacecraft that has been circling the Red Planet since 2016. One of the instruments it carries is a dosimeter, which has been taking measurements throughout the orbiter's journey.

According to the team behind the new research, those measurements show that just getting to and from Mars would expose astronauts to at least 60 percent of the current recommended maximum career exposure.

What precisely that recommended maximum is varies with sex and age, but it ranges from 1 sievert for a 25-year-old woman to 4 sieverts for a 55-year-old man. (The measurement of sieverts already accounts for differences in weight.)

But 60 percent just for the round-trip is particularly concerning, since presumably the point of going to Mars is to spend at least a little time on the planet's surface — ideally, without overdosing on radiation.</s>Intrepid explorers looking to be the first to set foot on Mars would face extremely high doses of radiation on the journey, according to ESA’s ExoMars mission.

The Trace Gas Orbiter satellite, also supported by Russian space agency Roscosmos, reported that astronauts would be exposed to at least 60 per cent of the recommended dose limit for their entire career in one journey to and from the Red Planet.

“One of the basic factors in planning and designing a long-duration crewed mission to Mars is consideration of the radiation risk,” said Jordanka Semkova of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and lead scientist of the Liulin-MO instrument, in a statement.

“Radiation doses accumulated by astronauts in interplanetary space would be several hundred times larger than the doses accumulated by humans over the same time period on Earth, and several times larger than the doses of astronauts and cosmonauts working on the International Space Station. Our results show that the journey itself would provide very significant exposure for the astronauts to radiation.”

The results are based on the assumption that it would take six months to get to Mars and six months to get back and backs up data gathered by the Mars Science Laboratory’s trip to the planet in 2011-2012.

The ExoMars 2020 mission, which plans to monitor the radiation on the surface of the Red Planet from its landing in 2021, will have a similar sensor instrument to find out more.

The Trace Gas Orbiter will act as a data relay for the 2020 mission’s rover and stationary surface science platform, but its primary mission is to provide scientists with the most detailed inventory of Martian atmospheric gases to date – including those that might be related to active geological or biological processes.

All astronauts expect to face a certain amount of space radiation over their career. Here on Earth, the magnetic field and thick layers of atmosphere protect humans from galactic cosmic rays. But once you’re off-planet, this radiation increases the lifetime risk of cancer, degenerative diseases and central nervous system effects and enough exposure would cause radiation sickness.

Finding a way to protect astronauts from these rays while on a long journey to Mars is crucial to any hope of a manned mission. The trouble is that the level of shielding required on any spacecraft would make that ship untenably heavy – the amount of fuel it would take to lift it off the ground and clear Earth’s gravity is prohibitive.

The only shield solution is to come up with more ingenious material to keep the weight down but protect the astronauts and some nanomaterials are showing promise. Alternatives are some sort of biomedical advance that could protect the astronauts and/or research into force fields. Force fields currently require too much power and material to build on a large scale, but further research could make this sci-fi solution a possibility.</s>Sorry, the "spiders" of Mars don't have anything to do with Ziggy Stardust. They are landscape features that have truly earned their arachnid-related nickname, however.

An image acquired by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) shows the dark formations, more technically known as araneiforms, spreading out against a lighter background. NASA says they're "characterized by multiple channels converging at a point, resembling a spider's long legs."

The team for the HiRise camera, run out of the University of Arizona, highlighted the MRO image on Twitter this week along with a shout-out to Planet Four, a citizen science project helping scientists identify features on Mars to study in more detail.

Planet Four volunteers look through images of the southern polar region of Mars, seeking out interesting formations known as fans and blotches. Their efforts help the MRO team plan where to take future images.

"The human mind is far superior at analyzing images with the complexity of the Martian surface," Planet Four says.

The HiRise team verified some of Planet Four's findings by spotting these spiders, which it describes as "features with radial troughs from which fans emanate in the springtime."

We've seen spidery imagery from the MRO before, including a dramatic view from earlier this year.

The spiders are created by a seasonal process caused by sub-surface carbon dioxide ice warming up and changing from a solid to a gas. The gas eventually breaks through as a jet that can deposit darker dust streaks around it. And that's how we get one of Mars' most intriguing, and potentially creepy, topographic sights.</s>The next group of astronauts to be selected will be returning to the moon and also in their career time frame will have the opportunity to go to Mars.

The British astronaut said his time on the ISS was extremely gruelling both physically and mentally.

This is why space agencies around the globe are already selecting and prepping astronauts for the six month journey to Mars.

Speaking at New Scientist Live, Major Peake said: “The next group of astronauts to be selected will be returning to the moon and also in their career time frame will have the opportunity to go to Mars.

“This will take a different mind-set. The psychological of being in space on the ISS are quite unique - every day you can look out the window and see planet Earth.</s>Earth's atmosphere protects us from space radiation, but a roundtrip to Mars would expose humans to astronomical levels of the stuff. Buzz60
The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter reveals dust devils in the Mars region Ariadnes Colles. New measurements indicate astronauts traveling to Mars would experience 60% of their recommended career exposure to radioactivity in a single roundtrip journey.