Mars

MIT physicists have found that “the presence of a tiny black hole speeding through the solar system could be identified by the gentle gravitational nudge it exerted on the Earth and other planets, which would alter their orbital paths by no more than a few feet,” reports Noah Haggerty for The Los Angeles Times. “It’s just fantastic that the most conceptually conservative response is to say, ‘It’s just super tiny black holes that were made a split second after the Big Bang,’” says Prof. David Kaiser. “It’s not inventing new forms of matter that have not yet been detected. It’s not changing the laws of gravity.”

A new study by MIT researchers suggests that miniscule black holes could briefly wobble the orbit of Mars and that these tiny black holes may pass through our solar system once every decade or so, reports Jess Thomson for Newsweek. “The researchers modeled the orbits of every large body in the solar system,” writes Thomson, “and found that tiny wobbles in the orbit of Mars could indicate one of the asteroid-mass black holes passing through.”

Science News reporter Emily Conover spotlights a new study by MIT researchers that proposes a new method to search for microscopic primordial black holes, which, if they exist, “could explain some or all of the universe’s dark matter.” The researchers suggest that when a primordial black hole passes close to a planet, it could “produce noticeable effects despite its tiny size.”
 

A number of MIT spinouts and research projects – including the MOXIE instrument that successfully generated oxygen on Mars, a new solar-powered desalination system and MIT spinout SurgiBox – were featured on TIME’s Best Inventions of 2023 list.

USA Today reporter Zoe Wells spotlights the Mars MOXIE device developed by MIT researchers, which “has already made 122 grams of oxygen, comparable to 10 hours of breathable air for a small dog. MOXIE produced 12 grams of oxygen per hour at 98% purity, which exceeded NASA's original expectations.”

MIT researchers have developed a new satellite observation technique that can gauge how fast rivers flowed on Mars billions of years ago and how fast they currently flow on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, reports Talia Lissauer for The Boston Globe. “We can use these other worlds to help us understand what keeps planetary climate stable, or in some cases, what allows planetary climate to change really drastically over time like on Mars,” says Prof. Taylor Perron.

Researchers from MIT have developed a new satellite observation technique that can help gauge the strength of ancient rivers on Mars and active liquid methane rivers on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, reports Jamie Carter for Forbes. “What’s exciting about Titan is that it’s active, and on Mars, it gives us a time machine, to take the rivers that are dead now and get a sense of what they were like when they were actively flowing,” says Prof. Taylor Perron. “With this technique, we have a method to make real predictions for a place where we won’t get more data for a long time.”

Using a new satellite observation technique, researchers from MIT and elsewhere have determined the flow of dried-up rivers on Mars and currently active liquid methane rivers on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. “Both kinds are of scientific interest because they could reveal the role rivers play in shaping the worlds’ environments,” reports Isaac Schultz for Gizmodo.

Prof. Tanja Bosak speaks with Scientific American reporter Jonathan O’Callaghan about the possibility that the soil samples collected by NASA’s Perseverance Rover on Mars could contain evidence of ancient Martian life.

Scientists from around the world, including researchers at MIT, have found evidence of past chemical reactions between liquid water and carbon-compounds on Mars, reports Laura Baisas for Popular Science. “We believe we have found these kinds of liquid water environments and organic compounds together. That’s sort of the limit to how we can describe what we call habitability,” explains postdoc Eva Linghan Scheller.

A team of scientists, including researchers from MIT, have found that Martian rocks uncovered by NASA’s Perseverance contain “signs of a watery past and are loaded with the kind of organic molecules that are the foundations for life as we know it,” reports Joel Achenbach for The Washington Post. “On balance, we are actually super lucky that there are igneous rocks in the crater, and that we happened to land right on them, since they are ideal for determining ages and studying the past history of Mars’ magnetic field,” says Prof. Benjamin Weiss.

NASA’s Perseverance rover has uncovered evidence of habitable conditions that once existed on Mars, reports Becky Ferreira for Vice. “In that kind of environment, we’re seeing very, very strange chemistry which is not common on Earth at all, but seems to be more common on Mars because we’ve seen these kinds of materials in almost all the missions now,” says postdoctoral fellow Eva Scheller.

Prof. Tanja Bosak speaks with Science reporter Eric Hand about how scientists plan to study rock samples from Mars for clues as to whether the planet once had a magnetic field and for signs of ancient life, such as the tough lipid molecules that can form cell walls. “You hope for an outline of a cell,” she says. “You will never find peptides and proteins, but lipids can persist.”

Washington Post reporter Pranshu Verma highlights how MIT researchers have demonstrated that the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) can convert carbon dioxide into breathable oxygen on Mars. “It’s what explorers have done since time immemorial,” explains Prof. Jeffrey Hoffman. “Find out what resources are available where you’re going to and find out how to use them.”

MIT researchers have used the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) to successfully generate oxygen on Mars, reports Martin Finucane for The Boston Globe. “This is the first demonstration of actually using resources on the surface of another planetary body and transforming them chemically into something that would be useful for a human mission,” says Prof. Jeffrey Hoffman. “It’s historic in that sense.”