On 25 December 2003 space exploration fans expected an extra Christmas gift. Beagle 2, a robotic spacecraft was to descend on the dusty plains of Mars. Once settled there, the tiny probe would play a musical call sign then start to photograph and poke the Martian soil in search of Read more…
New research and findings are coming to light suggesting that that we Earthlings might just all really be descended from Martians instead of that fell down to Earth on a meteorite from the rusty Red Planet. I am not suggesting that the Martian meteorite cracked up to reveal a lost Read more…
Percival Lowell was born into a wealthy Boston family on 13 March 1855. ‘No man is an island’ so like all of us he was a product of his times and class and also like many he rebelled against family traditions and expectations. He is best known for his ‘canals Read more…
On 6 August, while many of us are enjoying the Olympics, staff at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory will be nervously watching their monitors, waiting for a message from Mars.If all goes well, their Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft will scream through the tenuous Martian atmosphere, until its parachute cracks open, followed Read more…
Scientists had seriously considered the possibility of plant or even animal life on the surface of Mars for more than a century. However negative results from NASA’s Viking spacecraft in the 1970s ruled out large-scale Martian life but this was not the end of the search for life on Mars. Read more…