Electrons released when cosmic rays strike water-ice can provide energy for microbes and facilitate the formation of complex ...

For years, scientists have puzzled over how Mars lost the thick atmosphere it once had. That atmosphere was essential for liquid water to exist on the planet’s surface, billions of years ago.

Mars has a cold, desert-like climate with a thin atmosphere that supports extreme temperature variations, from highs of 68 °F ...

New research suggests Mars' missing atmosphere -- which dramatically diminished 3.5 billion years ago -- could be locked in the planet's clay-covered crust. Water on Mars could have set off a ...

In a fascinating new discovery, NASA’s Curiosity Rover has captured an image of a rock on Mars that closely resembles coral. This intriguing formation, observed on July 24, 2025, was photographed ...

For context, Mars’s current atmosphere contains only about 6 millibars of carbon dioxide, while Earth’s atmosphere, by comparison, has about 400 millibars of carbon dioxide.

The thick, mineral-rich layers of clay found on Mars suggest that the Red Planet harbored potentially life-hosting environments for long stretches in the ancient past, a new study suggests.

This model works well for modern-day Mars, so Buhler wanted to test how it would perform during a time when the planet had a much thicker carbon dioxide atmosphere—about 3.6 billion years ago.

How exactly Mars lost its thick atmosphere remains a mystery to scientists. Credit: NASA Not just rockets, though.